TORONTO – The president of Tim Hortons’ Canadian and U.S. operations is keeping his eye on the tariff feud that has broken out between the chain’s two most prominent markets with the goal of dulling the effects of the spat for consumers as much as possible.
“We are looking at every opportunity very closely to reduce the cost impact,” Axel Schwan said in an interview Wednesday.
The focus comes as companies on both sides of the border and beyond brace for a period of tumult that could kick off if U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his promise to impose tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods in a few weeks.
While automakers and others relying on steel and aluminum are likely to take a large hit, food also stands to be impacted.
With the growing season in Canada limited by its climate, the country often has to look elsewhere for produce like oranges and lettuce. But it also has strengths that Toronto-based Tim Hortons can leverage. Canada is a major supplier of the world’s canola, grains, potatoes, tomatoes and beef.
As a result, Schwan said Tims’s scrambled egg wraps are packed with 100 per cent Canadian eggs and its coffee is roasted in Ancaster, Ont.
“The vast majority of our products come from Canada, so that’s a very good starting point and we will make it even more Canadian,” he said.
Tims has been working to make those ties more obvious as Canadians turn to supporting homegrown businesses in the face of potential tariffs.
Over the weekend, it ran a Super Bowl ad reimagining the late Stompin’ Tom Connors hit “The Hockey Song” to call football “the second-best game you can name.” The spot ends with the message, “Sorry, not sorry. We’re proudly Canadian.”
When it shared the spot online, commenters cast doubt on the brand’s Canadian-ness, pointing to the fact that 3G Capital, an investment office for a trio of Brazilian billionaires, has a stake in Tims parent company Restaurant Brands International.
Schwan maintains “we are also the most Canadian brand, according to all the research that we have, and so that’s a really, really strong starting point.”
He spoke to The Canadian Press on the same day as RBI, which also owns Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, raised its quarterly dividend to 62 cents US per share, up from 58 cents US per share.
The restaurant owner, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, was encouraged to make the hike as its fourth-quarter net income hit US$361 million.
The profit amounted to 79 cents US per share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, down from US$726 million or US$1.60 per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, it earned 81 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 75 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled US$2.30 billion for the quarter, up from US$1.82 billion in the last three months of 2023, as system-wide sales totalled US$11.28 billion in its latest quarter, up from US$10.89 billion a year earlier.
Overall comparable sales rose 2.5 per cent.
In an earnings call meant to discuss the results, Joshua Kobza, the chief executive of RBI, highlighted Tims’s performance because the company notched its 15consecutive quarter of positive traffic growth.
While he attributed some of the increase to the company’s strength in sales during the morning, he also called out efforts to boost transactions it does later in the day by selling loaded bowls and flatbread pizzas, as well as cold and espresso-based beverages.
To get those menu items into customer hands even faster, he said the company had invested in new espresso machines that are being tested at 100 locations and are “showing promising potential.”
It has also zeroed in on speeding up drive-thrus and for the eighth consecutive quarter shaved down the amount of time the average car spends at the window on a weekday. It now sits at 28 seconds.
Kobza estimates each one second reduction in drive-thru time translates to about $30,000 in incremental annual sales per restaurant.
“This solidifies Tims as one of the fastest drive-thru concepts in North America,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.
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