Pocketbook pressures are pushing some Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. customers to ditch buying snack foods.
The convenience store chain’s chief executive officer, Alex Miller, said Wednesday that sales of packaged carbonated soft drinks, salty snacks and sweets have dropped as the cost of living and fuel prices rose.
But shoppers haven’t severely curtailed their overall spending.
“When you stand back, the consumer and many of the metrics, they’ve proven to be highly resilient and that gives us optimism,” he said on the company’s earnings conference call.
“They are out spending. They are just being more targeted, more direct and more thoughtful in their choices and we need to play into that.”
To cope with the shift in consumer behaviour, Miller said Couche-Tard is reallocating shelf space, refining its product assortment and tweaking its promotions to better suit demand.
So far, the consumer cutbacks don’t appear to be weighing much on Couche-Tard’s financial performance.
On Tuesday, the Laval, Que.-based company revealed its net earnings attributable to shareholders were US$828.5 million in its first quarter, up from US$782.5 million during the same period last year.
That amounted to diluted net earnings per share of 90 cents US for the first quarter, compared with 82 cents US in the prior-year quarter.
The firm, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported revenues of US$21.7 billion, rising from US$17.3 billion a year earlier.
Miller highlighted energy drinks as one of the stars of the quarter, which ended July 19.
“Energy’s been around now for 25 years and it is a massive category today,” he said. “It’s twice the size of carbonated soft drinks, yet it is still growing high single digits industry-wide and, for us, we’re outperforming that.”
New energy drinks like Alani and Celsius are driving much of the sales across that category and luring in more women.
“It’s been an incredible story and it is not slowing down,” Miller said.
Another highlight was the launch of Flamin’ Hot boneless wings — Couche-Tard’s first collaboration with Cheetos and Doritos maker Frito-Lay — in the U.S.
More than 40,000 units of the product are selling every week, pushing consumer spend on food even higher.
“More broadly, we’re seeing customers increasingly trade up into higher value prepared food offerings,” Miller said.
His remarks came roughly a month after Couche-Tard said it had made an offer valued at US$8.6 billion for a controlling stake in Polish convenience store operator Zabka Group.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals but is expected to close no later than December.
Zabka has more than 13,000 convenience stores across Poland and Romania. It plans to open another 6,000 to 7,000 stores in Poland, and 7,000 to 8,000 sites in Romania over the next five years, Miller said.
Meanwhile, Couche-Tard has more than 17,200 stores across the Couche-Tard, Circle K and Ingo banners.
It is on track to open more than 100 stores in its current fiscal year and Miller indicated Wednesday that acquisitions could boost that count further.
“We believe there’s an increasing opportunity to acquire one site, single sites, five sites, ten sites and our real estate teams have organized that way now,” he said.
“We are much more active on the ground pursuing those opportunities and we are starting to see more transactions in that space.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2026.
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