2024 ESG Report
Tariffs
Published Date: February 20, 2025
Loblaw is committed to eliminating competitor property controls in the grocery industry to benefit Canadians. We welcome competition, which helps to provide value to Canadians. Industry-wide change is needed for a level playing field to achieve full elimination of property controls, but in the meantime, we are taking the following steps: Restrictive Covenants: We are no longer placing restrictive covenants on properties we sell, preventing their use by competing businesses. We are also in the process of releasing any interest we have in restrictive covenants on our previously sold properties. Property owners with these types of property controls and covenants can contact lrelegal@loblaw.ca(Open in a new tab) for more information.
Lease Exclusivities: As the industry works towards these important changes, we are:
Eliminating competitor property controls from our grocery store leases in the Halifax Regional Municipality and will not impose any new ones in our grocery store leases in this Region.
Reviewing leases in communities across Canada where we may be the only grocery store, with the aim of releasing competitor property control lease exclusivity clauses to allow for increased competition.
Waiving existing radius restrictions to provide landlords with flexibility to lease to grocery store operators and food retailers on other properties they may own.
Limiting the scope and duration of grocery store lease exclusivities in all new leases across Canada.
Loblaw reaffirms its belief that competition benefits everyone and we are committed to ensuring that we have a fair and competitive grocery industry
Have general questions?
Published Date: February 7, 2025
Loblaw is a proudly Canadian company – employing more than 220,000 people across the country and supporting thousands of Canadian businesses large and small.
Over the past week, we’ve heard from our customers about their significant concerns around the potential tariffs on products from the US. Beyond the expected increase in prices this will cause, customers are anxious about the decision and are actively seeking ways to support Canadian companies.
Our goal is to minimize the impact, and to reassure customers about the products they’re buying. We are taking the following steps immediately:
We’re securing as much food as possible that is grown and made/prepared in Canada. We’re talking with our current Canadian vendors to source more products from them and looking into new and alternative vendors. Today, a fair amount of food is grown and processed in Canada.
We’re showcasing products prepared in Canada in our stores. We hope this will help make purchasing decisions easier for customers.
We’re broadening our supply chain beyond the US. Where we have products historically prepared or grown in the US with limited Canadian options, we will look for alternatives from other countries.
We’re advocating for Canadians. We’re talking with government and industry to ensure the potential consequences of this situation for Canadian consumers are well understood.
Canadians have been through a lot over the past few years. We know affordability, including the cost of food, has been a challenge. These tariffs, combined with the historically low Canadian dollar, have the potential to put significant pressure on food prices.
We will continue to do what we can, and to advocate on behalf of Canadians as a proud Canadian company.
