Dive Brief:
- Alimentation Couche-Tard reported year-over-year U.S. same-store merchandise revenue growth of 0.4% in its earnings report for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 on Tuesday.
- The company’s U.S. retail margins came in at 34.6%, nearly a percentage point better than the same period last year. This contributed to a 5% boost in U.S. gross profit.
- In an earnings call on Wednesday, Couche-Tard CEO Alex Miller attributed the same-store gains to a “focus on providing compelling value and ease, especially in our food and beverage offers.”
Dive Insight:
Couche-Tard executives gave the company’s value menu plenty of credit for its recent growth. By the end of the quarter, Couche-Tard sold 8.6 million food bundles, with a weekly average of more than 750,000 — a nearly 40% increase from the end of its 2025 fiscal year.
The value menu, which debuted about a year ago, includes a roller grill hot dog or taquito with a bag of chips and a Pepsi for $3; a breakfast sandwich, hash brown and Monster energy drink or coffee for $4; and two slices of pizza with a 20-ounce drink for $5. Miller said the roller grill offer, bakery items and breakfast sandwiches were top performers.
Couche-Tard's same-store sales turn a corner
Couche-Tard picked up momentum as the period progressed.
The final month of its first quarter, which ended on July 20, was the company’s strongest month for top-line sales in more than two years. Couche-Tard has posted 10 straight weeks of same-store growth in the U.S. and Canada that stretched into the current fiscal quarter, Miller said during the earnings call.
Some of the broader societal conditions that have made value such a strong proposition in recent years aren’t letting up, either, Miller said.
“We continue to see lower-income, lower-middle-income consumers stretched, strained, really controlling their spending,” he noted.
The retailer also shared an update on its plan to build 500 new stores by 2028. Couche-Tard opened 10 new builds in the first quarter and is on track to open more than 100 for the full fiscal year, Miller noted in the earnings call. Sixty-five sites are under construction and more than 1,000 are currently in its real estate development pipeline.
