Canada

Yes, yes it can, but it needs co-op or crown corp distribution as well.

I would completely support Canadian stores. I recently tried to find interfacing for a sewing project. There is nowhere in my city left that sells it. I had to resort to Amazon—and then had to send it back because it didn’t even work. I’m trying to do everything I can to distance myself from the USA, Amazon, conglomerates. It’s getting harder and harder. I went to Cloverdale Paint to buy 1 gallon of paint for my very small bathroom. It was double the price of American made brands. I guess I’m not painting my bathroom.

Co-ops and non-profits are also corporations.

"It becomes a profoundly difficult thing to scale that infrastructure in a way that allows you to scale growth in the retail sector," he says. "So can it work? I think it could, but it would be a very difficult and painful process to get established and to grow."

One of the Federated Co-ops, Red River Co-op, ceased grocery operations in 1983 - it wasn't until the Sobeys/Safeway merger in 2014 that they were able to pick up four of the Winnipeg locations that the new megacorp were forced to sell, and re-enter the market. They now have nine grocery locations in and around the city.

It's hard to take a lesson from that, since you can't count on those circumstances to repeat every often, but inheriting existing infrastructure certainly seems to help.