Canadian Industrial Profile: Grocery Stores—Autumn 2017

Non-Food Offerings—Larger grocers are offering non-food items like pharmaceuticals, dry cleaning, and financial services. These products can offset some of the low margins associated with traditional grocery products.

Labour Productivity—New technologies, such as automated checkouts, have helped pushed output per worker significantly higher in the past decade. As a result, firms save on labour costs and are less sensitive to wage fluctuations.

Canadian Dollar—An uptick in the Canadian dollar in the medium term will ease costs for imports, allowing industry margins to hover around 2 per cent—higher than in recent years.