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Retailers should show savings on receipts, says Nutrition North board

Retailers should show savings on receipts, says Nutrition North board

Nutrition North's advisory board says new technology at grocery store checkouts will give consumers the transparency they are demanding.

The advisory board made the statement at a public meeting in Iqaluit Thursday night. One of the major concerns raised in the auditor general's report last fall was about transparency and accountability with the Nutrition North program.

Nellie Cournoyea, a member of the board, says the savings at the grocery checkout aren't clear to the average shopper.

"What people want to know, they want to be clear if they're actually getting the subsidy that the government has allocated to their community."

That's why the advisory board is now pushing to have retailers print receipts saying exactly how much money customers saved on their purchases through the shipping subsidy.

"Before it's just a little thing on the shelf that says 'you save that,' it doesn't mean anything," said Danielle Medina, a member of the advisory board.

Technology required

Medina said retailers are making the change despite some technological difficulties.

"The retailers are paying for the implementation, not the government, so it shows their participation and it shows the transparency," said Medina.

The Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau-Québec in Nunavik started issuing those kinds of receipts this week.

Iqaluit-Tasiluk​ MLA George Hickes said pushing for more informative receipts is a step in the right direction but it doesn't reveal the full calculation of costs for each retailer.

"It still goes back to the original question of how do they calculate the price of the pre-Nutrition North cost," he said.

"What kind of profit margin is built into that price?"

He said the information should also be used to give Nutrition North a benchmark of what foods cost in a given community.