You got two options here. So which one are you going to choose? hmmmm?
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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Yes they are; Because they small businesses, which actually pay their employees a living wage and don’t have the buying power of the big supermarkets.
Even then, all the IGA locals around me and larger IGAs on surrounding towns are still cheaper than Safeway and Coles.
This isn't my experience with Foodland or IGA - they generally only employ teenagers so they can pay them the under 18 rates.
We must be going to different stores on different days.
All the Local IGAs in my area employ single mums and more mature staff members. The only young employees I see are family members of the owners.
The big IGA in a nearby town employs the same demographics of staff members; they even have a professional Butcher on staff (and they have excellent value cuts of meat) (I used to deliver for a butcher when I was younger and have seen some dodgy butchers and some overpriced dodgy butchers and some excellent butchers.)
idk how much they pay their workers but I suspect that since iga is the distributor, they get most of the cut. I'm not faithful to any chain anyways, the post is mostly a joke
IGA isn't a small business, and I've no clue if they pay a decent wage, but $10 for a dozen eggs is insanely expensive and reason enough not to shop their. Aldi is amazing tho, and I agree Coles is quite expensive, not sure if it is more than IGA tho as they are generally 5-10x woolies prices (which are already very high)
The IGA shops are small businesses, there might be a few owners who are large enough, with multiple stores to call themselves medium size, but the vast majority are owner-operators.
The large conglomerate your referring to is called Metcash, they're the primary wholesaler to IGAs but also wholesale to other shops. They also own the IGA brand in Australia at least, i don't know if theres a North American connection with the IGA brand up there.
I wouldn't assume they pay a better wage, thats almost certainly a store owners decision, which means it'll vary store by store. Maybe Metcash might give 'guidance' but they don't have direct control like Coles, Woolies, Aldi, Costco.
So, when you buy IGA more of the profits are remaining local with the owners of that store.
If i remember right Metcash' assets are through product sales and brand ownership. This is also why Metcash will likely never be able to conpete properly with Coles, Woolies, Aldi, and Costco because all of those companies have the land and buildings their stores are situated on positively affecting their borrowing capacity, Metcash doesn't have that therefore fundraising for expansion, or technology upgrades is more difficult.
That extra layer of (internal but not internal) wholesaler sales i believe is the reason why IGAs are slightly more expensive. But even then it depends on the type of IGA we're talking about, there are some really fancy ones and some not so fancy ones.
I suppose everything i just wrote is based off knowledge over 10 years old now, but i think its largely still true.
IGA isn't a block. The clue is in the name
Safeway! There's a name I haven't heard in about 10 years. Are there still any Safeways that haven't turned into Woolies out there?
Sorry. I am old and they will always be “Safeway” to me. I know that they are called Woolworths, but I can’t get that name into my head.