Dive Brief:

• Alimentation Couche-Tard laid off an undisclosed number of non-frontline employees in the U.S., Canada and Europe in May, continuing a series of “small scope” staff reductions it has undertaken over the past year, a Couche-Tard spokesperson confirmed in an email.
• The spokesperson declined to comment on how many employees were affected by Couche-Tard’s latest round of layoffs, but noted they reflect the company’s ongoing efforts to control costs.
• This comes about seven months after Couche-Tard confirmed it would eliminate 90 positions across various stores in North America in a move that was expected to commence at the end of May 2023.

Dive Insight:

Back in October, Couche-Tard announced it would eliminate some accounting roles as it moved certain tasks to a third-party provider. Although those firings and the company’s latest layoffs appear to be happening simultaneously, the spokesperson declined to comment on how the two correlate.

Couche-Tard’s latest layoffs were part of a “business review process,” the spokesperson said. Besides controlling costs, the layoffs have been made to help Circle K stores operating efficiently and position Couche-Tard for the future, they said.

“Regardless, we don’t make these decisions lightly, and we have been supporting the affected team members in their career transitions with the care and respect that they deserve for the contributions they’ve made to our business,” Couche-Tard’s spokesperson said.

While the spokesperson declined to specify what divisions these layoffs affected, multiple LinkedIn posts from members of Couche-Tard’s logistics team over the past few weeks indicated that the retailer may be restructuring that department, among other changes.

Corporate and in-store layoffs aren’t the only human resource hurdles Couche-Tard has faced in recent months. In March, the retailer disbanded its global innovation team — which had spearheaded technology-driven projects like the retailer’s Smart Checkout program — to “focus more squarely on core operations and strategic growth priorities,” the spokesperson said at the time. 

While the majority of the team members in that division were reassigned to other areas of the business, in May, Magnus Tagtstrom, Couche-Tard’s former global vice president of innovation — the individual who led this team — resigned from the company.

Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates more than 9,000 c-stores in North America — including over 7,000 in the U.S. — under the Circle K, Holiday Stationstores and Couche-Tard banners. It is the second-largest c-store company in the continent behind 7-Eleven.