Empire Co. Ltd. — the grocery retailer that owns Sobeys, Farm Boy and FreshCo, among other chains — announced it will be opening nearly 100 new stores over the next three years, with the majority designated as discount grocers.
In a quarterly earnings call Thursday morning, president and CEO Pierre St-Laurent said Empire will be opening 20 new stores by the end of the current fiscal year and 70 new locations over the next three years.
“More than 75 per cent are going in discount because discount is a white space for us,” St-Laurent said on the call.
“We have a lot of room to grow in discount without cannibalization of our network.”
At a time of increased food bank use and after months of high food inflation, major grocers, including competitors Loblaws and Metro, have expand their discount footprint in recent years.
Sobeys’ parent company took a large writedown of $746 million after it announced in January it was closing its Voilà grocery distribution centres in Alberta and pausing the online service’s expansion in the Vancouver area.
In its outlook for its 2027 financial year, Empire expects its capital spending to be about $850 million, with about half allocated to renovations and new stores and 25 per cent allocated to IT and business development projects.
Empire reported a 27 per cent increase in earnings year-over-year.
With files from the Canadian Press
