A Quebec IGA is charging $5 for an individually-packed tomato and people are losing it

When it comes to grocery chains in Quebec, IGA usually finds itself on the more bougie end of the supermarket spectrum. And folks who shop there know their prices aren’t exactly Super C territory.

But a location on the Îles-de-la-Madeleine is taking things to a new level, and people are losing it.

A shopper who visited the IGA in Fatima recently came across individual Savoura hothouse tomatoes, each one sealed in its own plastic container and wrapped in cling wrap.

A photo of the display hit the Facebook group Spotted Service de Marde (a web page dedicated to bad service experiences with companies) on Monday, April 20, and within 24 hours had hundreds of comments piling up.

The kicker: some individually-wrapped tomatoes were priced at over $5 a piece ($14.99/kg).

For context, hothouse tomatoes, typically grown in temperature-controlled environments, are more expensive than the average tomato. However, they can be purchased for $8.80/kg at Metro and Maxi respectively.

In this case, IGA’s packaging alone was enough to get people going. And the price sent them over the edge.

What people are saying

The (mostly French) comments ranged from outrage to flat-out mockery. Here are a few highlights:

“Forget the packaging — $5.07 for one tomato. No thanks, I’ll pass.”

“$5 for a tomato, come on!” — to which someone else replied they’d bought the same tomato for half the price at Walmart, adding: “So here we’re paying for the packaging and the employee who wrapped them.”

One person had a theory about why they’re packed individually: “To make sure they don’t scan them under a cheaper code, if you ask me.”

Not everyone was furious, though. Some made light of the situation.

“At $15 a kilo, they might as well protect them by wrapping them,” joked one commenter, while another suggested IGA should go all in and add bubble wrap and a security tag.

“Organic? I hope!!!”

Many pointed out the irony of a grocery store embracing single-use plastic at a time when paper bread bag ties, cardboard straws, and wooden forks have become the norm.

What the store says

MTL Blog reached out to the IGA location in Fatima for comment.

A store representative got back to us an said the tomatoes were packaged and priced incorrectly:

“After verification, we can confirm that this was an internal communication error, both in terms of the display and the presentation of the product. The tomatoes were individually wrapped by mistake, and the unit price displayed did not reflect the original intention.”

The store has since adjusted the price of the produce item.

“As soon as the situation was brought to our attention, the necessary corrections were quickly made in store,” the representative added. “We recognize that this situation may have caused confusion and we have since taken the necessary steps to prevent this type of situation from recurring.”