Canada Bread takes legal action against Maple Leaf in bread price fixing matter

Canada Bread Company has taken legal action against Maple Leaf Foods in a move it says will protect its financial and legal interests in relation to an ongoing alleged bread price fixing matter.

In a news release today, Canada Bread alleged that Maple Leaf Foods personnel “directed and participated in certain anti-competitive conduct” that was investigated by Canada’s competition bureau and then “used Canada Bread as a shield” after Canada Bread was fined $50 million in 2023. Maple Leaf Foods was then majority owner of Canada Bread, which has been owned by Grupo Bimbo (Bimbo Canada) since 2014.

Read Also

Saskatchewan crop report: Hot, dry conditions help harvest

Saskatchewan’s harvest was more than halfway finished at 61 per cent complete, although not as much as the 68 per cent complete from one year ago. The figure was higher than the 42 per cent reported last week, the five-year average of 50 per cent and the 10-year average of 46 per cent. The southwest region was the nearest to completion at 85 per cent while the northeast region’s harvest was only at 34 per cent.

In 2023 Ontario’s Superior Court fined Canada Bread after the company pled guilty to four counts of fixing bread prices in 2007 and 2011. The allegations came to light in an industry-wide federal investigation launched in 2017 by the Competition Bureau.

Canada Bread’s claim against Maple Leaf seeks to hold the company to account “for any and all of its costs, expenses and damages resulting from such breaches, including those related to the Competition Bureau’s investigation.”

Earlier this summer, grocery giant Loblaw (Loblaw Companies Limited) and parent company George Weston Limited announced that a $500 million settlement had been reached in a class action suit concerning their involvement in the bread price-fixing scandal. The parties named in the class action suite are Loblaw, George Weston, Canada Bread, Sobeys, Metro, Wal-Mart and Giant Tiger, according to class action firm LPC Advocats’ website.