During the company’s second quarter earnings call on Thursday morning, Loblaw executives fielded questions from analysts about the grocery giant’s soft food retail sales — and whether a boycott organized online had impacted the company’s profits at all.
Some Canadians have been boycotting Loblaw since May, after the moderators of an online Reddit group called r/loblawsisoutofcontrol began encouraging its then-45,000 members to stop shopping at the store and its subsidiary brands.
During the company call, neither CEO Per Bank nor chief financial officer Richard Dufresne used the word boycott. But they didn’t deny that it was a factor in food retail sales that “came in a little soft” compared to the same time last year.
The company’s earnings results note that food retail same-stores sales increased by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of this year, compared to a 6.1 per cent increase during the same quarter last year.
‘A bit of an impact’ in certain stores in specific markets
Asking directly about what she called an unexpected weakness in food retail numbers, one RBC analyst noted that while inflation and multi-buy pricing were factors, “there was also the boycott.”
She asked where the company was seeing gains and where it was seeing “pressure.”
Dufresne spent part of his answer to the analyst saying that several factors impacted food retail sales, contrasting last May’s hot weather — which he said helped garden and suncare sales — with the rainy and cold weather during May this year (the same categories that suffered, he said).
He then said, “regarding what you just mentioned in the last part of your question,” that the company noticed “a bit of an impact” in certain stores in specific markets. He said that things had returned to normal by the end of the quarter.
Bank chimed in after Dufresne’s response.
“The overall financial impact was minor. For us, every single customer is important to us. One customer lost is one too many,” he said.
“And I have spent a lot of time speaking to customers and different stakeholders,” Bank went on. “And I do listen to them because their feedback is really, really helpful and we welcome it. It makes us better.”
Canadians frustrated with rising groceries prices have pledged to boycott Loblaw-owned stores for the month of May. On the same day it was set to begin, Canada’s largest grocer reported a nearly 10 per cent increase in profits.
Boycott organizer Emily Johnson, who lives in Milton, Ont., said news that the boycott had made a small dent was “great for the movement as a whole as well as for consumers.”
“A big part of what we’re doing is just continuing to keep that pressure on,” Johnson said.
“We’re going to be here and we’re going to be pushing for food security, we’re going to be pushing for fair markets [and] fairer treatment of customers.”
Ken Wong, a retail analyst, told CBC News…
Read More: Without mentioning boycott, Loblaw execs suggest it was a factor in weaker