Value was the name of the game for Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. during its first quarter.
Shoppers were constantly looking for deals at the Laval, Que.-based company's convenience stores and every other retailer they visited, CEO Alex Miller said on a Wednesday earnings call with analysts.
While he didn't hypothesize about why value was such a priority at Couche-Tard on that call, he said at the company's annual general meeting shortly after that "it is more challenging than ever in the retail world as consumers are hurting and continue to carefully watch their spending."
Many retailers have spent the quarter explaining how shoppers are being more cautious with their spending because of the tariff tensions and rising prices.
"I can tell you we will lean into value everywhere we see the opportunity to do that in a compelling way that resonates with the customer," Miller told analysts on the earnings call.
So far, Couche-Tard has been reducing some of its offerings, so it can offer more deals on remaining products.
For example, the company has significantly cut back how many freshly prepared food items it stocks but at the same time, doubled down on meal deals.
In many markets, the deals bundle hot dogs or taquitos with chips and a drink for $3 or pair two slices of pizza with a pop for $5. Breakfast sandwiches also get bundled with coffee and discounted.
The company sold 8.6 million of the bundles in the first quarter, growing its weekly average by 40 per cent to 750,000 from 540,000 at the end of its last fiscal year, Miller said.
"We're pleased with our progress, but we believe we have an exceptionally long runway," he said.
The next frontier for food optimization at Couche-Tard could come from private label products. Miller feels his company needs to look more closely on what private label merchandise it stocks, where it is placed in stores and how it is procured.
"We're in a reset mode, kind of similar to what we did in food, where we kind of reset, kind of rationalized SKUs," he said, referring to stock-keeping units, a business term used to describe individual products.
Miller's remarks came after Couche-Tard reported that its first quarter net earnings attributable to shareholders came in at US$782.5 million. That compared with US$790.8 million a year ago.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, said earnings per diluted share translated to 82 cents US compared with 83 cents US a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share were 78 cents US, down six per cent from 83 cents US in the same quarter last year.
The company also recorded revenue of US$17.3 billion during the period ended July 20, down five per year-over-year.
During the quarter, Couche-Tard pulled its proposal to buy the parent company of rival 7-Eleven in July after courting Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd. for nearly a year.
However, the period also saw positive same-store sales, including in its U.S. market for the first time in several quarters.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Irene Nattel said the results were "not the kind of robust growth quarter everyone would like" from Couche-Tard but thought investors "should be somewhat encouraged by the modest growth" the company experienced through in-store and gas sales.
The market responded to the results by pushing the company's share price up by about five per cent to $72.94 in mid-morning trading Wednesday.
At the annual general meeting later in the morning, the company faced a lone question from a shareholder who asked about the collapse of the Seven & i deal. The shareholder was told the company is still interested in acquisitions and believes it has the ability to get future deals done.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2025.
Companies in this story: (TSX:ATD)
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
