Alimentation Couche-Tard

Alimentation Couche-Tard's Circle K is teaming up with Mastercard to pilot a rollout of timely frictionless checkout solutions designed for convenience stores and other retailers.

=Alimentation Couche-Tard continues to be on the hunt for acquisitions even as it claims convenience store rival 7-Eleven's blockbuster US$21-billion acquisition of the Speedway network in the U.S.

Canopy Growth Corp.

More than a year after winning the chance to open one of Ontario's first cannabis stores through a provincial lottery, Lisa Bigioni has walked away from her Niagara Falls pot shop.The store had become like a second home and it was painful to leave, but Bigioni wanted to make good on a deal she signed with a large cannabis brand that helped get her shop up and running under the tight deadlines set by the province.“(Choom Holdings Inc.) offered a whole bunch of expertise that I needed after the lottery, but then in exchange for that, they said, 'we'd like to buy your store when the time is right.' The time came and there was a great deal on the table, so here we are,” said Bigioni, who sold to the Vancouver-based company in April for $2 million in cash and $2 million in common shares.She's using the proceeds to open her own Stok'd cannabis store chain.The Alcohol and Gaming Corporation of Ontario, which oversees cannabis retailers, couldn't say how many of the first lottery store winners are still associated with the shops they opened, but The Canadian Press has counted several that have changed hands _ and experts say more are likely to follow.Such sales are being replicated by several of Bigioni's 24 fellow lottery victors from round one, who were not allowed to sell their stores until last December, and 42 from a subsequent lottery.Fire and Flower (which recently co-located two stores with Circle K) has already scooped up two stores in Kingston and Ottawa, High Tide landed two in Sudbury and Hamilton and Canopy Growth Corp.

23 incredible industry leaders share their stories.

Executives from three of Canada's largest grocery chains were in communication before launching and ending temporary wage increases for grocery store workers during COVID-19, but maintain their decisions were not co-ordinated.Metro Inc.

LAVAL, Quebec — Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., parent company of Circle K, reported a relatively strong fourth quarter for its 2020 fiscal year despite grappling with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic."Our agile, decentralized model, as well as the advancements we made in operational excellence this past year, helped us to face the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 and I'm proud to say, I think we've emerged from this historic year a better and stronger company, both financially and culturally," president and CEO Brian Hannasch stated during the company's Q4 earnings call on June 30."We ended the fourth quarter with strong top-line trends, including 12 weeks of positive traffic, before we endured a significant decline in traffic and fuel volumes with the pandemic stay-at-home orders implemented across our global footprint," he added.Looking at the fourth-quarter numbers, same-store merchandise revenue decreased by 0.5 percent in the United States and 6.5 percent in Europe, while increasing 4.7 percent in Canada compared to the same quarter last year.From a fuels perspective, volumes declined sharply during the first weeks following the stay-at-home orders.

Like all convenience store retailers, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.