53 New Walmart Food Hypermarkets In Quebec Since 2011!
Two decades after opening its first store in Canada, Walmart started opening its first Québec’s “Supercentre” in 2011, which include a quite large grocery store (source: Les Affaires). Since then, its network of Supercentre store has grown steadily, attaining today 53 Supercentres out of a total of 71 Walmart stores, a ratio that continues to grow.
This means an average of 10 new Supercentres per year!
According to the Journal de Montréal, since Walmart started transforming its current stores into Supercentres, the company makes $900 million in additional revenue per year and now ranks third in Canada in terms of food distribution.
As the DepQuébec Geomap* shows – for the first time showing a complete view of all stores – the choice of the new hypermarkets in Quebec have been carefully planned to reach the largest possible pool of consumers:
- 22 in the Montréal region
- 7 in the Quebec City region
- 4 in the Outaouais region
- 2 in Sherbrooke, 1 in Trois-Rivières, 2 in the Lac St-Jean, etc.
The Supercentres have an impressive food section including fruits and vegetables, meat counters, deli meats, bakeries, and take-out food. They include both goods normally available in Walmart and a full grocery store (fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and bakery). They are recognizable by their two distinct entrances. However once inside, no wall separates the food (20% of the space) from the general merchandise (80%).
This expansion, coupled with the arrival of Costco, has put great pressure on the three large Quebec food chains (Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro), given the slow growth of the population. “Their profit margins have been shaken. It is not that we are looking for a price war, it is our mission [to have low prices],” says Chantal Glenisson, who observes “more aggressiveness in circulars” and “more loyalty cards” (source: La Presse).
Sobeys, among others, is experiencing some market adjustment issues: we recently saw a price reduction campaign in its IGA supermarkets and more recently, a significant staff downsizing.
It is possible that this Walmart growth has also affected the convenience store market share as well, on a much smaller scale though than competing supermarkets.
Ultimately, consumers stand out as winners: they end up with more choices, better prices and more dynamic chains that can no longer take anything for granted.
* Note: To view the Walmart Supercentres on the DepQuebec GeoMap, click HERE and once in the map, enter “supercentre” in the “Title” field.
