Metro to open dozen discount stores in 2025
Ontario and Quebec retailer Metro Inc. said it plans to open a dozen new discount stores in fiscal 2025.
The company—whose banners include conventional grocery chain Metro, discount supermarkets Super C and Food Basics and pharmacy chain Jean Coutu—shared plans to grow its network Wednesday (Nov. 20).
After opening nine new stores in 2024, president and CEO Eric La Flèche told analysts the company plans to open 12 new discount stores next year, including some conversions primarily in Quebec.
Metro also completed 28 major renovations across its pharmacy network this past year. In fiscal 2025, it plans to take on 30 major projects, including 12 expansions and 18 major renovations—nine of which will be to the company’s new store layout design.
“We see good opportunities in discount, mostly in both provinces,” La Flèche said. “We see opportunities for us to expand our network, grow our market share and grow our tonnage. Food Basics in Ontario is doing really well. It's been on a very good run for a few years, capturing share, and we see more opportunities. Same with Super C.”
La Flèche said Metro’s discount banners continue to outperform its traditional grocery stores. “However, we are seeing the gap narrow as we cycle our strong discount performance over the past three years,” he added.
The chief executive said the company sees opportunities to capture customers in areas experiencing population growth.
“It's really market by market… There's urban, suburban, rural—there's opportunities in all of these markets. For competitive reasons, we're not going to telegraph our plans here, but we see opportunities for growth, and we have a plan to deliver on it,” he said.
Metro reported net earnings of $219.9 million in its fourth quarter, down 1% year-over-year.
Sales were down 2.6% to $4.94 billion. Food same-store sales rose 2.2%, and pharmacy same-store sales increased by 5.7%.
More than one million shoppers have signed up for Metro’s Moi loyalty program in Ontario.
The program, which first debuted in Quebec in May 2023, was introduced in Ontario last month. Comparatively, Moi counts 2.7 million active members in Quebec.
READ: Behind Metro’s plan to make Moi the ‘most personalized loyalty program in Canada’
Notably, Ontario customers that accumulate at least 500 points—equivalent to $4—can start redeeming points. This constitutes the lowest threshold to redemption for everyday essentials like groceries, Metro said. Shoppers can also redeem in $1 increments rather than predetermined tiers.
“We wanted the program to be a little bit more promotional in the Ontario environment, allowing us to compete with a mix of our loyalty program and our commercial program,” said chief financial officer François Thibault.
Late last month, Metro marked the completion of its seven-year, billion-dollar supply chain modernization project with the opening of an automated fresh distribution centre (DC) in Toronto.
As Metro comes out on the other side of a transition period, Thibault said the company’s profitability will gradually improve in fiscal 2025.
“We're still ramping up the fresh DC phase two in Toronto, and we're improving the metrics at the other DC, so we see gradual improvements and reductions in the duplicated costs,” Thibault said. “We built a plan for fiscal 2025 to achieve our EPS growth objective, but our profitability will improve gradually throughout the year.”
Thibault is set to retire early next year. An outside search for his replacement is currently underway.
“We're pleased that we have a good, strong bench and that we are able to fill positions as we execute on [our succession plan],” La Flèche said.
