Agriculture committee  We are in the food business, and our profit margins are on the order of 2.5%. I don't know where 2.5% is considered excessive for turnover like ours. The margin of error is very narrow. We have to pay our 130,000 employees, invest millions of dollars in capital to renovate our st

Agriculture committee  There are several. The cost of goods is extremely high. Labour is increasingly scarce, and this puts enormous pressure on all businesses, be they farmers, processors or retailers. As I said before, we have to encourage technological innovation. We have to invest in everything w

Agriculture committee  It could help us in terms of labour, in its broad sense, that is absolutely certain.

Agriculture committee  I'm going to try to answer all your questions. First, Empire never engaged in bread price fixing. I want to be clear about that. We opened our books, and investigations were done. To my knowledge, there was never any price fixing. We do not talk to our competitors about retail p

Agriculture committee  The factors you are talking about relate to customers' purchasing preferences. Price is a very important criterion for consumers. However, what that study shows is that consumers place value on other factors, such as customer service, the variety of products, and proximity to th

Agriculture committee  Not only do we agree with it, but we were the first ones to recommend it, two years ago. We sat down with our suppliers...

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely. If you agree to a code of conduct, it has to be applied by everyone, including the American companies that do business in Canada.

Agriculture committee  We were inspired by a code of conduct that already exists in the United Kingdom.

Agriculture committee  Everything we do to recruit more workers will be a benefit for the farmers, for the processors, and for us, the retailers. There are unfilled positions in our stores at present. In some provinces, we have as many as ten or 15 positions that are not filled. The other factor I wou

Agriculture committee  If I go back, our margins were even lower in 2017. The company was having serious problems. Then we announced a fairly major restructuring project called Sunrise. We made the announcement publicly. That three-year program, from 2017 to 2020, enabled us to start over with profita

Agriculture committee  Yes, that's right. In fact, at Empire, over 90% of our business is in the food sector. That corresponds to our net profit margin.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Those are the figures that are already published in our quarterly report.

Agriculture committee  I can tell you that local products have a place on our shelves. Our business model is the same for all our franchisees from one end of the country to the other. They are people who are involved in their communities. They give space to those products because consumers want them.

Agriculture committee  It's hard for me to comment on the figures from the United States, since I am not familiar with them. However, I do know that for all dairy products in Canada, the Canadian Dairy Commission seems to have been exposed to all the arguments necessary for a price increase. Three con

Agriculture committee  It doesn't involve the same range of products. In a grocery store, there are between 25,000 and 30,000 products. I don't think that is the case in every restaurant. As well, each product is different. I can find you 25 different cost prices for chicken breasts. Agricultural pro