Its sales have been lacklustre, but Wal-Mart Canada Corp. can point to at least one area of consistent growth: food. Now it’s counting on its core strength – its ability to get goods to shelves quickly – to lure more customers into its grocery aisles.
Consumers often judge a grocery store by the quality of its fruits and vegetables. In Canada, Wal-Mart has had to catch up with rivals, having introduced fresh produce here just four years ago in its new Supercentres. Today, in its key Ontario market, it is starting to move produce from warehouse to stores in a mere one day, down from as much as three, to shave costs by cutting by 25 per cent the amount of wilted produce that it has to toss.
The efforts appear to be paying off. In its third quarter, Wal-Mart reported on Tuesday that while overall sales in Canadian stores open a year or more slipped 0.4 per cent, it continued to enjoy strength in its food business.
“It’s very important for them, especially in the short term, if food is the area where their sales are increasing,” said Martin Gooch, director of the Value Chain Management Centre in Guelph, Ont. “They can’t afford to get it wrong.”
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