Why It Matters

Empire Company Limited is proudly Canadian, with 115 years of experience in the food retail business. As one of only two national grocery retailers in Canada, we serve the food shopping needs of Canadians with more than 1,500 stores in all 10 provinces under retail banners that include Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, Farm Boy, Longo’s and Lawtons Drugs and grocery e-commerce under the banners Voilà, Grocery Gateway, IGA.net and ThriftyFoods.com, as well as more than 350 retail fuel locations.

Our core retail food formats and related businesses are designed to ensure that we have the right offering in the right-sized stores for each individual market we serve—from our full-service format to the convenience format, each tailored to satisfy the unique shopping needs of our customers.

Our core values are our strength and the foundation of who we are: Customer-Driven, People-Powered, Community-Engaged and Results-Oriented. And our purpose—we are a family nurturing families—is our collective passion and mission to nurture the things that make life better, including great experiences, families, communities and the lives of our 130,000 teammates from coast to coast.

  • Teammates:

    130,0001

  • Total stores:

    1,598

    (excluding fuel stations and related convenience stores)

  • Total square footage:

    41.6 million

  • Communities served:

    928

  • 1Employees of Sobeys Inc., our franchisees and our affiliates. All data is as of May 7, 2022

Our Strategy Vegetable garden

Our Strategy: Project Horizon

Project Horizon is our three-year strategy to achieve an incremental $500 million in annualized EBITDA by the end of fiscal 2023. Building on the overwhelming success of Project Sunrise, our previous three-year strategy, we are well positioned to accelerate growth in market share and build on cost and margin discipline.

growth-icon

Growth in Market Share

  • Invest in Empire’s store network
  • Improve store productivity
  • Win Canadian grocery e-commerce
  • Grow Empire’s Own Brands portfolio
  • Provide best-in-class customer personalization
building-cost

Building on Cost and Margin Discipline

  • Drive non-merchandising sourcing efficiencies
  • Continue to build merchandising sourcing efficiencies
  • Invest in best-in-class analytics to improve customer value proposition
  • Optimize supply chain productivity
  • Improve system and process

Financial Highlights

Empire’s key businesses are food retailing, through wholly owned subsidiary Sobeys Inc., and related real estate. With approximately $30.2 billion in annual sales and $16.6 billion in assets, Empire and our subsidiaries, franchisees and affiliates employ approximately 130,000 people. Additional financial information relating to Empire, including the Company’s Annual Information Form, can be found on the Company’s website at www.empireco.ca or on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Sales ($ in billions)
  • 6.4%

    10-year CAGR(3)

  • 4.9%

    5-year CAGR

Adjusted EBITDA(1)

($ in millions)

  • 10.5%

    10-year CAGR

  • 23.9%

    5-year CAGR

Adjusted Net Earnings(1)(2)

($ in millions)

  • 8.7%

    10-year CAGR

  • 31.3%

    5-year CAGR

Dividends ($ per share)
  • 7.2%

    10-year CAGR

  • 7.9%

    5-year CAGR

  1. See “Non-GAAP Financial Measures & Financial Metrics” section of the Management’s Discussion and Analysis.
  2. Attributable to owners of the Company.
  3. Compound annual growth rate.