Loblaw CEO Per Bank says discount stores now key to winning price-weary shoppers

Chris Young/The Canadian Press

Narrow aisles, fewer shelves, and plenty of house-brand items: this Loblaw store feels cosier but still offers enough variety for a grocery run.

Loblaw’s Danish chief executive, Per Bank, brought a little bit of Europe with him three years ago when he moved here to run the country’s largest grocery chain.

“Small discount stores … I would probably say that’s some of the things I brought to Canada,” Bank said, sitting in the backroom of a small-scale Toronto No Frills on a brisk October morning.

In its smaller 5,000-product stores, Loblaw has done away with the deli counters, live pizza stations and fresh bakeries typical of its conventional banners — and shoppers aren’t complaining. While discount stores aren’t a new phenomenon, Loblaw’s transition into a quick in-and-out shopping experience at its discount banners, No Frills and Maxi, has taken it up a notch.

The rise of Loblaw’s discount and small format stores

Now, many of its discount banners are downsized into something more like a corner store. 

When he took the helm, Bank said the company had about 43 small-format stores under 20,000 sq. ft. Today, there are more than 75 across the country with an intentional strategy.

“Now we have a plan to go for the small stores. And it’s both urban and it’s rural,” Bank said.

That’s opened room for Loblaw to grow its discount footprint even in smaller communities with as few as 4,000 people, where a full-scale conventional grocer may not set up shop.

“Not many years ahead, I believe that discount will be more than half of our food business,” Bank said. “I don’t think that was something anyone had seen prior to my arrival.”

Discount banners make up about 40% of the company’s grocery footprint and are on track to outnumber its conventional stores — Real Canadian Superstore, Loblaws and Fortinos — as consumers hunt for deals. 

Loblaw discount store expansion comes as food inflation is soaring

The company’s continued move into discount comes as household budgets have been hammered in recent years by a string of economic shocks. It began with soaring food inflation coming out of the pandemic, a tariff dispute between the U.S. and Canada that flared up after President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, topped with an energy crisis stemming from war in the Middle East. 

As headline inflation hovers around 3% grocers could once again be at the forefront of consumers’ anguish — déjà vu from recent years, when Loblaw became the poster child of food inflation.

“I don’t think inflation is in a great place now,” Bank said. 

When asked if Loblaw could bear consumers’ wrath once again, Bank said: “If we will, all will.”

“We are hopefully in a better place than most because of all the other things we do for value. So for us, it’s just important to stay really, really competitive.” 

Loblaw still faces brand reputation issues

Bank believes Loblaw’s reputation is “in a good place.” 

“We were quite humble about the challenges,” Bank said of the boycott movement championed by the Reddit group dubbed LoblawIsOutofControl.

He recalled meeting the subreddit’s organizer even when he was advised not to. 

Still, Bank said grocers will always be under pressure for prices because consumers interact with stores and not suppliers — and there will always be some unhappy consumers.

Consumer well-being researcher Monica LaBarge said Bank took the reins when the company wasn’t in a good place and still holds an “unenviable job” trying to improve Loblaw’s reputation from where it was with the bread price-fixing scandal and the boycott a few years ago.

“While its (brand image) may have recovered a little, Loblaw is still at the bottom of the list in terms of Canadian grocers,” said LaBarge, an assistant professor at Queen’s University studying food access and consumer well-being.

She pointed to a 2026 Great Canadian Brand Index consumer survey, which ranked Loblaw last among 130 brands in Canada and labelled it the “most scrutinized” among all grocers.

Loblaw may have become an easy target for consumers because of its past behaviour, while other grocers have flown under the radar, LaBarge said. 

“It’s compounded and if you need a bad guy, they’re an easy bad guy.”

Winning back consumer trust depends on the interplay between shareholders’ desire for returns and consumer perception, she said. And it will take years to repair its reputation.

Meanwhile, Bank’s job isn’t getting easier with a slowing economy and rising geopolitical tensions, LaBarge said.

Record diesel prices, Iran war causing new challenges for Loblaw

Record-high diesel prices from the war in Iran have created a fresh set of challenges for the grocer: suppliers proposing price hikes. 

Bank said one of Loblaw’s biggest suppliers came in with a 15 per cent price increase request, which the retailer is pushing back on. 

“This is just something that made me really angry,” he said. “Who’s going to get the blame? We are.” 

Bank said it’s the grocers who face consumers’ anger over price increases, not multinational suppliers such asNestlé, Unilever or P&G,who are behind these hikes.

A fight for consumer dollars comes as the U.S. and Canada stand far apart on a trade deal.

If he could, Bank said he’d like things to “go back where it was before the tariffs.” 

“Let’s go back in time, and I don’t know whether that’s possible, but it’s not helpful that we are in the situation that we are.”

But the resolution reached in Greenland’s situation when Trump mused about taking over the territory earlier this year gives Bank hope that Canada’s tensions with the U.S. will ease over time.

“I’m Danish, right? (Trump) wanted to take Greenland,” he said.

“I felt that (the U.S.) was out for me both in Canada and Greenland. It’s like coming from both sides,” he said, jokingly.

Last month, the U.S., Denmark and Greenland signed an agreement about the status of the island, allowing Washington to set up its military operations in certain areas. 

“Now that (it’s) resolved, maybe that’s an indication that other things will resolve over time,” Bank said.

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