I think that principle is intended to apply to staples, when people in poverty are forced to steal food so as not to starve.

Stealing bars of Dairy Milk and then selling them on seems like a different thing.

It’s bringing the price of that product back to reasonable market levels and having a knock on effect on the pricing of that product in general.

Whilst I agree it’s different from stealing staple foods, it’s still something I’d happily turn a blind eye to as it’s an unofficial public service

(Yes, yes, I’m leaving)

Sainsbury’s profit margins are about 3.8%. Any individual profit might have a larger margin than that, but the maximum downwards pressure on price you can exert overall is that much, which equates to 10p on a £2.75 bar of dairy milk. Is that what you mean by a public service?

Chocolate has experienced extremely high inflation lately because climate change is causing crop failures in countries where chocolate is grown.

3.8% over what time period? If that’s still compounding from the 7.2% from last year isn’t that still an overall increase for the shareholders?

You make it sound like they’re so close to losing money

I’m calculating this from this article linked up the thread, dated April 2025, which says their profits were “just north” of £1 billion on £26.6 billion of revenue.

I’m not an accountant so I dunno if this is the exact right figure - further down the article it says their pre-tax profit was £761 million, which gives you a lower gross margin of 2.9%. I’m sure these different figures just reflect different ways of looking at the same numbers but the point is the same - Sainsbury’s is not, overall, gouging people on prices. Surely some products are overpriced, but others are loss leaders.

1 billion is still a lot of profit made on something that we require to live (not chocolate specifically, but food,) even if the margin is low.

And the companies making the products are also profiting.