Expansion
On the retail side, Loblaw expanded through the 1980s. By 1984, it had become Canada’s largest and most profitable grocery retailer. At the end of the decade, the company owned over 300 stores and more than 1,200 franchise operations. Loblaw had begun opening large format, one-stop-shopping centres in Western Canada under the Real Canadian Superstore banner and within a decade these store accounted for a significant portion of earnings. But when similar large-scale ‘hypermarkets’ were opened in Ontario, they lost money and had to be scaled back. As a result of Loblaw owning much of its real estate, rather leasing, the company was able to reduce the size of its Supercentres by simply renting out the redundant space.
While retail formats were not easily transferable, the company’s ‘control label’ products proved successful from one store format and part of the country to another. By 1993, No Name and President’s Choice products accounted for $1.5 billion in revenue with sales that extended into the United States.
Read more about this topic: Galen Weston
Famous quotes containing the word expansion:
“Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“We are caught up Mr. Perry on a great wave whether we will or no, a great wave of expansion and progress. All these mechanical inventions—telephones, electricity, steel bridges, horseless vehicles—they are all leading somewhere. It’s up to us to be on the inside in the forefront of progress.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The fundamental steps of expansion that will open a person, over time, to the full flowering of his or her individuality are the same for both genders. But men and women are rarely in the same place struggling with the same questions at the same age.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)