GrumpyCanadian The sticker collecting card and other material had end date printed on them (fine printing of course) which was February 20 for redeeming cookware, perhaps stores will accept them if only to clear out the space, I should have asked but was in a hurry. The Loblaws brand store that I go into normally uses this space for seasonal things, with St. Patty Day coming soon they will want to be using it to hock green and gold related merch.
Never did find out what sort of stainless steel grade was used in their pans. The build, weight and materials aren't close to the actual swiss made product. The quality is similar to a product they sold (still sell) called a 4th burner pot. This pot is tall and narrow with an internal basket which makes it useful for a number of tasks (steaming, deep frying, boiling) but on anything except an induction range the small base makes it slow to heat up. Again it's another Chinese built product, spot electro welded handles, welded on heat plate on the bottom, basically same build ethos. It's not bad but its not top of the line. Alcad which is sold at costco (again perhaps modified for that vender to lower costs) offers better things. In all perhaps it allowed people on a limited budget that could not have afforded to blow hundreds on cookware to pick up a few pieces, but most of the stuff had a non stick coating (4 out of the seven products) and you know even with care those surfaces are short lived. People could strip off the coating and keep using the pan but that is non-trivial, hazardous work. A shopper would have had to spend 2800 dollars on products in the store and then spend 10 - 40 dollars per pot/pan on top of that, I don't recall what each item was but most had been priced in the 20 dollar or higher bracket. Loblaws made money, still pissed off its customer base and will keep making money. As always a win win for them.