The rising cost of living may have contributed to a surge in cigarette smuggling in
“In Canada, we felt pressure on our cigarette sales. There seems to be a transfer to the black market," chief financial officer
CEO
“This is a sign that the pressure is mounting on consumers. We are lucky to see unemployment at a historic low, which means that the consumer is still in better shape than in 2008-2009 (during the financial crisis)," he added.
Hannasch said he's satisfied with traffic into stores, but consumers are buying brands at lower prices.
“We see consumers switching from premium beer to low-cost beer.”
He said its development of private label offerings has paid off with sales growing by double digits in
“We've done a lot of work with private labels over the past three years and we've seen a lot of growth. This allowed us to make a greater profit per item sold.”
In April, the retailer announced the suspension of operations at 38 stores in
Excluding one-time items, adjusted profits increased to
Revenues increased 34 per cent to
The core results were slightly better than expected because higher fuel margins in the
Tessier said a 19 per cent increase in expense was attributable to weaker spending following tougher pandemic lockdowns, inflation pressure on costs and payroll, along with investments to encourage sales growth.
Hannasch said the company is seeing the "light at the end of the tunnel" in terms of its workforce shortages as it is hiring more employees than it has lost, suggesting there will be a reduction in overtime at a higher hourly rate.
High fuel prices are expected to continue to put pressure on fuel sales volumes, Stifel GMP analyst
In
“We believe high fuel prices may have hurt convenience store sales due to the shock at the pump.”
"In the current macro backdrop,
For the full-year, it earned
This report by
Companies in this story: (TSX:ATD)
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