Opportunities in Canadian Grocery and Convenience

In Canada, five supermarket chains make up of nearly 75% of the retail grocery market, i.e. Loblaws, Costco, Walmart, Sobeys and Metro. While in big cities like Vancouver, Toronto, local grocers and grocers focusing on speciality food take shares in the retail grocery market, in other part of Canada, the big fives dominate. Because of the small market size of Canada and the difficulties of setting up new supply chains, it is very difficult for a new big player to enter the market.

The growing umployment rate, the mass immigration policy makes it extremly easy to fill job positions with minimum hourly rate. In addition, the mass immigration, various government benifit plans, scarce of quality job positions and the overall low productivity of the society fuels the growing demand of the affordable food grocery. It is not likely for such trends to reverse in the short run and the strong performance of the Canadian retail grocery is most likely to continue.

We see the recent retreat of the stock price of the convenience store chain Alimentation Couche-Tard due to its underperformance from the last financial report. However, convenience store chains are still important for the supply, especially in remote areas and less populated areas. Due to the high housing prices, the overpopulated big cities and the mass immigration, there are opportunites for the development of Canadian small towns and the convenience chain.