Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Metro Inc. 2023 Q2 results conference call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, April 19th, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Sharon Kadosh, Manager, Investor Relations and Treasury. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our comments will focus on the financial results of our Q2 , which ended on March 11th. With me today is Mr. Eric La Flèche, President and Chief Executive Officer, and François Thibault, Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer. During the call, we will present our Q2 results and comment on its highlights. We'll then be happy to take your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will use in today's discussion different statements that could be construed as forward-looking information. In general, any statement which does not constitute a historical fact may be deemed a forward-looking statement. Words or expressions such as expect, intend, are confident that, will, and other similar words or expressions are generally indicative of forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements are based upon certain assumptions regarding the Canadian food and pharmaceutical industries, the general economy, our annual budget, and our 2022, 2023 action plan. These forward-looking statements do not provide any guarantees as to the future performance of the company and are subject to potential risks, known and unknown, as well as uncertainties that could cause the outcome to differ materially. Risk factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from our expectations, as expressed in our forward-looking statements, are described under the Risk Management section in our 2022 annual report. We believe these forward-looking statements to be reasonable and pertinent at this time and represent our expectations. The company does not intend to update any forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law. I will now turn the call over to François.
Thank you, Sharon, and good morning, everyone. Total sales for the quarter were CAD 4.6 billion, an increase of 6.6% over last year, with food same-store sales up 5.8% in the quarter and pharma same-store sales up 7.3%. Our gross margin stood at 20.1% of sales, same as in the Q2 last year, with both food and pharma gross margins stable year-over-year. With high food inflation persisting, the company has continued to invest in food margins during the quarter, but this was offset by productivity gains in direct labor, and as such, margins remained flat year-over-year. Year-to-date, food gross margin is down, partly offset by a higher margin in pharmacy.
Operating expenses increased 4.9% to stand at CAD 467.7 million or 10.2% of sales versus 10.4% of sales in the same quarter last year. CAD 8 million in gift cards were paid last year, whereas this quarter we also had new expenses that were incurred for the launch of the loyalty program, Moi, as well as fees paid to partners for the express delivery e-com sales. EBITDA for the quarter total, CAD 447.3 million. That's up 8% year-over-year and as a percentage of sales, EBITDA was 9.8% versus 9.7% last year.
Total depreciation and amortisation expense for the quarter was CAD 120.6 million versus CAD 116.3 million for the same quarter last year. The 3.7% increase reflects the additional investment in supply chain and logistics as well as in-store technology. Adjusted net earnings were CAD 225.4 million compared to CAD 204.7 million last year, a 10.1% increase. Our adjusted net earnings per share amounted to CAD 0.96. That's up 14.3% versus last year adjusted EPS of CAD 0.84. Halfway through the fiscal year, capital expenditures amounted to CAD 288.5 million versus CAD 285.7 million last year.
Turning to our current normal course issuer bid program, we have repurchased between November 25, 2022 and March 31 of this year, a little over 2.9 million shares for a total consideration of CAD 210 million, representing an average share price of CAD 0.81 a share. That's it for me. I'll turn to Eric.
Thank you, François. Good morning, everyone. Building on our strong start in fiscal 23, we are pleased with our results in the Q2 as our teams continued to deliver value to our customers in the current high food inflation environment with competitive everyday prices, our full range of private label products, effective promotional strategies, and our loyalty programs. Our commercial programs continued to resonate well with our customers, resulting in market share gains. Total sales grew by 6.6%, EBITDA by 8%, and adjusted EPS by 14.3%. Food same-store sales were up 5.8% compared to elevated sales last year because of the Omicron variant, with many restrictions on capacity and access to restaurants limited, if you'll remember. Our internal food basket inflation was 9%, slightly lower than in the previous quarter.
Compared to last year, traffic was up while the average basket came down slightly. Promotional penetration remains very high as consumers search for value. Turning to online, sales were up 41% versus last year, driven mostly by successful third-party marketplace partnerships and added capacity. Pharmacy comparable sales were up 7.3% on top of 9.4% in the Q2 last year. Prescription drugs were up 5% and commercial sales were up 12.2%. Primarily driven by over-the-counter products, cosmetics, and health and beauty. We are looking forward to the launch of the Moi loyalty program later this spring across our Quebec banners. Moi will leverage the strength of our food and pharmacy networks, where over 95% of Quebec households already shop during the year, offer more points collection and redemption opportunities, and enable more personalised promotions and greater customer engagement.
Turning to the modernisation of our supply chain, we are pleased with the operations of both fresh phase one and the new freezer in Toronto. Our frozen DC is exceeding expectations in terms of productivity and capacity. About 95% of frozen products are now shipped through the DC versus 70% previously. This results in improved on-shelf availability for our customers and more efficient operations. In the province of Quebec, construction activities are now completed for the new fresh and frozen DC in Terrebonne, and the installation of the automated systems is on track to start operations at the end of this summer. As we begin our Q3 , we remain focused on delivering value to our customers with quality products at competitive prices as higher than normal inflation and market challenges persist.
Compared to last year, the number of price increase requests received from suppliers in the months of February and March came down, as well as the size of those increases. While we are not able to predict how the current macro environment will evolve, we expect some moderation in food inflation. To conclude, the Draft Grocery Code of Conduct is expected to be released in the coming weeks. I wanna reiterate that Metro has and will continue to support industry-led initiatives that enhance transparency, predictability, and fair dealing throughout the supply chain. Metro has played an active leadership role in the drafting of the industry-led Grocery Code of Conduct and is supportive of its widespread adoption. Thank you. Will now be happy to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Mark Petrie from CIBC. Please go ahead.
Thanks, good morning. I wanted to just start about on the food gross margin performance. François, you called out productivity gains, and I'm just hoping you could expand on that a little bit. Does that stem specifically from the new DCs or is that more broad? I'm just curious if sales mix, in one form or another, either category or channel, had any notable effect.
Yes. Good morning, Mark. Basically, the productivity gains come from two factors. One, top line growth is still healthy, so you get efficiencies because of the increase in sales. Also, as you pointed out, our investment in DCs are showing improvement. There's less labor touching the product to bring it to the store. We're gaining efficiencies on that respect. It's mostly these two factors that explains the improvement. Even though we made some investment in margin at the merchandising level, those were offset by these direct labor gains, so that overall the margin remained flat.
Okay. Is it fair to say then that those productivity gains accelerated in Q2 from Q1?
Yes. Yes. It's... Yes, I am cautious when I say that, but yes, these are long, long-term projects, but we're looking at the improvement, the learning curve and the productivity improvements, you know, as expected is increasing. As Eric pointed out, the performance of the freezer especially, is above expectation. That is showing up. Yes, we expect, you know, it's not over. As we move to the next phases, that's what we expect to have in coming months, coming years. There has been an improvement in Q2, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Appreciate that. On SG&A, obviously another great quarter controlling cost. Hoping you could just expand on the various pieces there. Then specifically, what kind of wage inflation are you experiencing in your business today or are you seeing in terms of your union negotiations?
Well, the SG&A, as I said in my remarks, 4.9% increase. It was 4.2% in Q1. I think we're, as you say, we're pleased in the environment that we're in. We're pleased with that YoY increases. We did have CAD 8 million in gift cards last year. As I said, there's also new items this year which were not there, like the launch of Moi and the fees that we pay for these express delivery sales with our partners in e-com. All in, you know, I'm looking at an increase at 4.9%, we're okay with. As I said, this is a focus for us as we move forward.
There's more of a lag in SG&A than cost of goods sold, obviously with respect to inflation. We gotta be, we gotta be mindful and we gotta make sure that we're on top of these of these expenses as top line growth will you know, is expected to come down as inflation pressures ease off. That's the first thing. On the labor contract, yes, obviously as labor agreements come due, you know, people are looking to for some catch-up. The first year of a new labor agreement is a higher-than-normal increase.
As we negotiate a multi-year agreement so that on a CAGR, if you will, for the next, for the, you know, 4 or 5 years or more that the labor agreement is in place, it's a reasonable CAGR. And it's something we manage, as you've seen in our SG&A, something that we can manage. Yeah, there are some cost increases, minimum wage, that we manage. I think overall, so far, so good.
Yeah. Okay. Appreciate all the comments. I'll pass the line. Thanks.
Thanks, Mark.
Your next question comes from Peter Sklar from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Your food same-store sales was positive 5.8%, your inflation, I think you said in the write-up, was 9%, suggesting you lost some tonnage. I'm just wondering how you reconcile that, you know, with your statement that you gained market share during the quarter. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the ins and outs of all that arithmetic.
On the market share, we rely on Nielsen MarketTrack data that we track weekly, monthly, quarterly. We can say based on those figures that we are gaining share overall, so very pleased with our market share performance, and it has been the case for the last few quarters. On tonnage, the quick math that you're doing is a bit misleading in this high inflation period. The discount mix, package, private label sales, there are different factors at play here that indicate that our tonnage is more like flat to slightly positive versus the decline that you get on the back of the envelope calculation that you're using. We're pleased overall with our performance in discount.
Obviously, discount continues to perform very well, market-wide. For us, very pleased with our performance in discount. Our conventional stores are not growing as fast. That's a market reality. Within the conventional segment, we're pleased with our relative performance. Those would be my comments.
Okay, understood. Just my last question is, with the launch of Moi, you briefly touched on it in your commentary, Eric, but can you elaborate a little bit on with Moi, what are the advantages for the consumer and what are the advantages for Metro?
The consumer will get more opportunities to collect points and redeem points throughout our channel of food and pharmacy. Instead of just Metro stores in Quebec, it's Metro, Super C will participate. The Jean Coutu banner will be the big newcomer and Brunet also. More stores or opportunities to collect points online and in store for our customers in Quebec. Like I said in my opening statement, almost everybody in Quebec shops one of our banners through during the year. Hopefully, they'll shop even more with this internal, let's call it an internal coalition, program in the province of Quebec. I think for customers, it's an opportunity to get points, save money, get targeted promotions on what they buy, what they like, even more so.
We think it's a more personalised, more generous program for customers. For us, we get better visibility of customer behaviour throughout our stores. I think that gives us and our vendor partners more opportunities to target and be more personalised and engage more with our customers. We think it's a win-win. The last new thing, I said it before, I didn't say it in the opening statement today, is the credit card partnership with RBC. It's a co-branded card, so customers who select that card will collect points not only in our networks, in our stores, but they will collect Metro points on whatever they purchase they make on that credit card.
We think that's gonna be a benefit for customers, too. We're looking forward to launching it in a few weeks. We're gonna have a marketing campaign to support it, and hopefully people will sign up.
Thank you for your comments. That's all I have.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Chris Li from Desjardins. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Good morning, Eric and François. I guess my first question is maybe a bit a tougher one to answer, but, just wanted to get your thoughts. You know, even though inflation is starting to moderate, you know, prices are still gonna be meaningfully higher than a year ago. I guess my question is, you know, how sticky do you think the shoppers are who have shifted to discount, at, you know, how sticky are they? Will they remain there for longer even though inflation is starting to moderate a little bit?
Yeah. Prices are high, and that's why discount is growing fast. There's no big surprise there, but we do provide good value in our Metro stores. There are strong promotional programs in the Metro store, and there's good value for our customers there. I think conventional stores are gonna continue to do well. You know, the transfer between one and the other, there's ebb and flow. Hard to predict. I think overall, the general long-term trend favouring discount continues and will continue. That doesn't mean that conventional stores are not gonna continue to do well in many, many markets. It's the right store, it's the right format for the market.
We like to have both in our portfolio, and we'll continue to do well with both.
Okay, that's helpful. Maybe a follow-up to that is, was the transaction count at the conventional banner up compared to last year?
Yes.
Okay.
Customers are in the stores more often, buying smaller baskets, but there's higher traffic in all of our banners.
Gotcha. Okay. That's helpful. Maybe shifting gears a little bit, just, Eric, if you can comment just maybe on what you're seeing on in terms of the competitive intensity, and I wanted to maybe drill down a little bit in the Quebec market. As you know, one of your competitors have been converting some of their conventional banners to discount banners in Quebec. Are you seeing any notable impact on your business? Maybe just some comments on that would be helpful.
Yeah, we're tracking all competitive activity in all of our markets. We monitor, you know, the impact. I can't say it's really store by store, market by market. In some places, it's hardly noticeable. In other places, it's very noticeable.
Yeah.
It really varies, and for competitive reasons, I'm not gonna say more.
The last one for me, just on the drug reform side. Are you seeing any updates? I know the agreement has come and gone. Just any update on that, on generic drug pricing?
No, we're still waiting for resolution and news of those negotiations. The agreement expired April first, so it's been extended for an undefined period, but we are still awaiting the news and hopefully the reductions, whatever reductions or pricing that comes out of that will respect the realities of distribution. You know, our distribution fees are based on the price of these drugs, and our costs are going up. There's inflation in the supply chain, as we all know, so I'm sure the government is aware of that, and we'll see where the negotiations end up.
Great. Okay, thanks, and all the best.
Thanks, Chris .
Your next question comes from Vishal Shreedhar from National Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Can you give us a sense of what will change at Metro for investors when we look at the company as a result of this Grocery Code of Conduct?
What will change at Metro for investors? Not much will change.
Yeah, like, as we look at it. Okay.
I think, you know, just to give you. It's an industry-led Code of Conduct that will, you know, make rules of engagement a little clearer, and it will encourage more written agreements between the parties so that there are no surprises and no unilateral decisions to increase, decrease, impose fees or whatever. It's not gonna change how we go to market. It's not gonna change the way we deal with our suppliers. We think our relations with the supplier community are good, are fair. We've always believed in fair dealing and we do our best to deliver on the commitments that we make. We negotiate fairly. Of course, we negotiate hard.
We wanna have competitive costs, but it's not gonna change the way we do business.
Okay. Thank you for that. In your opening commentary, you mentioned that promotional intensity is strong. Wondering if you when you compare that to 2019, will you say it's at levels comparable or more intense than 2019 levels pre-COVID?
Slightly above pre-pandemic in terms of penetration, percentage of sales on promo versus regular. It's slightly higher now than it was pre-pandemic. Again, very much a function of high inflation. Features, the specials are selling more. People managing their budgets, very normal behaviour. We try to serve our customers the best we can. We have promotional strategies in all of our banners, and we try to be as effective as possible, and I think our results show that they have been effective, so we're pleased with that.
Okay. Maybe on another topic here, pharmacy services, just given the long-term outlook of that business, I would anticipate the pharmacy services in your drugstores to increase. Wondering given that your business is franchisee, do the economics predominantly flow to the franchisee? How should we think about how Metro thinks about pharmacy services and your inclination to expand that?
Yeah. Pharmacy services are going to grow. Yes, we expect long term, that number will continue to grow, you know, to relieve pressure on the public system and demographic reasons that you know very well. The economics of it will influence or impact our franchisees and will impact us. The franchisees makes a fee or charges a fee that's negotiated with the government on the value of those services, for the most part. Those services become part of the retail sales, quote-unquote, "Of the franchisee," and we make a royalty off of that. It has an impact on us.
We are working with our franchisees, through our professional services group to be the best in the market, to deliver those services in the most efficient way. For our patients, for their patients, and for the pharmacists. Yeah, it's a focus of our team for sure, and we're looking for more down the road.
Maybe just one last one here. Obviously encouraging to see some of the initiatives that Metro's been working on for several years starting to bear fruit in terms of on the P&L. Can you give us some insight on the capital expenditure and when you expect that to normalise? Are there any other big projects in the pipe after this supply chain initiatives? What is a normal level of CapEx that we should expect for Metro, you know, after this supply chain initiative?
I'll take that one, Vishal. As we said, you know, we did CAD 620 million last year, which was a record. We called about CAD 800 million this year, and probably a similar level next year. The biggest years in terms of CapEx is this year and next year. This year and next year. As we finalise the Talbot and then we come back and finish fresh phase two in Ontario. Then you'll start to see CapEx coming down. In the number that. In the CAD 800 million number that for this year, there is some real estate which can be a little choppy, we know it's not as precise as P&L.
We'll stick to that, and if there's any change, we will give you an update. To your question, this year and next year will be the two biggest. Then you come back down to a more normal level, which is gonna be around CAD 500 million, I would call it roughly. That includes both food and pharma on a regular run rate investment. This is all factored in our plan. We are looking to earn the rate of return as we do all projects in which we invest. So far, we're, as we said earlier, we're tracking well on these big projects.
Thank you for that color.
Your next question comes from Irene Nattel from RBC. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I think we're all kind of trying to square the circle on consumer spending behaviour today versus pre-pandemic. You said the promotional intensity was higher. Where do we stand on discount versus conventional and also private label and things like pack size? If you could provide a little color there, that would be great. Thank you.
Yeah. Promotional penetration, as you said, is higher. It's elevated. It has creeped up with the high inflation. It went down early in the pandemic, if you'll remember, because of people doing one-stop shop and availability of product was an issue. Last year when inflation started to pick up quickly, promotional penetration picked up also very quickly, and that's where we are. We're back to a little above pre-pandemic levels, and we expect that to stay elevated. Discount versus conventional, it just continues what we've said for the last three quarters. Discount is growing substantially faster than conventional, and that continues and for us and the market in general.
Again, we're well-positioned in discount in both of our markets in Quebec and Ontario, and we're pleased with our performance in discount on a relative basis and on an absolute basis. Very pleased with our share. Private label throughout all of our banners is growing at double the rate basically of sales because our private label portfolio provides a lot of value to customers, lower prices, great quality. Very pleased with that performance. I think our portfolio of 4,000 or so private label products is just the best quality it's ever been. I think it's resonating well and being bought by a lot of customers more and more in our stores. Not just...
Yes, the price, but the quality is there too, and that builds loyalty and it builds repeat purchases. There's not much change net on customer behaviour over the last few quarters. This is, this was the Q4 basically of high, very high inflation. It's very similar to what we described in the last few calls.
Thanks. That's really helpful, Eric. That 4,000 SKU number on the private label, has that been relatively stable, or have you been increasing the private label? 'Cause it looks like there's more of them or they're just redone and they look good.
Well, the packaging is redone once in a while, and there are labeling requirements that force us to redo packaging. While at it, we improve it. Yeah. No, I think the team's done a great job. The 4,000 number is plus or minus in the same neighbourhood as it's been for a long time. I think the quality and the innovation has improved a lot over the last five years. I think that's reflected in the sales performance we're getting for those products.
That's great. Thank you. Just coming back to the launch of Moi. Is there anything you can share with us at this point about the ease of conversion for, you know, for existing Metro & Moi customers, and whether we should be expecting another step up in spend around that in the current quarter?
For Metro & Moi members, cardholders, it will be seamless. They will have to do nothing and their card will be accepted on their purchases at our other stores, other banners in addition to Metro. At Jean Coutu, there will be a campaign to sign up members. A lot of Metro & Moi members of Shop at Jean Coutu already, so for them, it's going to be seamless, but those that do not, we will have to sign them up as new members. We'll have in-store campaigns, digital and in-store to sign up the membership.
You know, we have a 1.2 million members of Metro & Moi. We're looking to increase that substantially over the next year. We'll put some gunpowder behind it on the marketing side.
To your question, Irene.
That's very
To your question, there will be some expenses in Q3 as there were in this quarter, and it's part of the, it's planned, and it's part of the pool of expenses that we manage. We'll give more color on the next call.
That's very helpful. Thank you. Then just finally, if I might, on PJC, front of store, very strong. Can you talk about what you're seeing in the current quarter, where we are in terms of sales levels, by category relative to pre-pandemic, and how you think, you know, how you expect that to evolve?
Thanks for the question. It's very strong front store sales and at Jean Coutu in the last few quarters. The cough and cold season has been long and strong, which drives traffic, as you know, in our stores, so it's very good for OTC sales and traffic, and we sell a lot of other stuff. Beauty and cosmetics has done really well also. Since the end of March, cough and cold season has abated quite a bit, so we're seeing lower OTC sales currently and expect that to be so for the next little while until the next burst in cough and cold and viruses comes about. We were expecting that. It's a...
The peak of cough and cold was like I said, long and strong, so at some point it has to come off, and I think we're gonna be through that in the next few months. We're expecting lower front-end sales performance going forward, but still healthy. On Rx, you saw, you know, from the 7% or so increases we saw in previous quarters down to 5% in this quarter, still very strong Rx performance. You have to remember that last year we were distributing tests for COVID, and that counted in Rx performance. We were providing vaccines, so there's much less of that going on today, and there's no more distribution of tests.
That cost a few points of growth on the Rx, but we're still very pleased with the 5% growth, and we look for continued strong performance on Rx, going forward. Hope that answers your question.
That's great. Absolutely. Thank you.
Your next question comes from George Doumet from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Eric and François. Just a couple of follow-ups for me. On the pharmacy, do you know from the Rx kind of volumes for prescriptions, volumes, do you know where they are versus pre-pandemic? Maybe on the front end, the front-end 12% comp number, can you maybe break out how much of that was pricing?
We'd have to get back to you on volume of Rx versus 2019. I don't have that top of mind. On the pricing, yeah, there was inflation. There's inflation on the pharmacy commercial sales. Not as elevated as what we're reporting for food and the 9% to 10%. It's more mid-single digit on HABA products. That is also a factor in the elevated commercial sales.
Thanks for that.
We expect that to moderate also as we, as we quote-unquote, "Expect food inflation to moderate going forward," we're expecting some moderation on the pharma side too.
Got it. Thanks for that. On the gross margins for food, I think last quarter you called out higher feature penetration, weaker produce margins. Just wondering if that pressure was consistent this quarter and maybe if there's any other headwinds that you might wanna call out.
Not really. I think the margin performance in the current environment, very competitive, high inflation. You have to be sharp. You have to be, how should I say? I think our teams are doing a really good job to deliver that value and deliver a decent margin. Like François said, we invested in gross margin. We're not passing on all the inflation that we receive, but productivity on the labor front, which counts on the cost of goods sold, was better, so we're reporting a flat margin. Other than that, you know, we're happy with our performance.
Just one last one, if I may, Eric. What would be your outlook maybe for tonnage growth for the H2 of the year? Tonnage is up, flat to up a little bit, but your outlook there, and I know this is a bit of a crystal ball question, but what needs to happen for discount to stop outpacing conventional going forward, I guess?
We don't provide guidance or outlooks for tonnage growth. We'll, you know, like we say, we provide many formats, many stores, and we're looking for increased sales in all of our stores, be they conventional or discount or pharmacy. What has to change for discount to slow down? Like I said earlier, inflation remains elevated. It's hopefully gonna moderate, but it's still be elevated versus pre, you know, normal inflation that we used to have. You can expect discount to continue to perform well short term.
That's all I would say.
Okay, thanks for your answers.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one. Your next question comes from Michael Van Aelst from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I wanted to get back onto the gross margin a little bit. You talked about the productivity gains from your frozen DC. Can you just give us a bit more color on to how that's ramped up over the past couple of quarters since you opened it and how much more upside there is to come from that?
It's ramped up, obviously. When you first go live, it's not near where it has to be, and it's not near as what the old warehouse was doing. It's as we said, it's performing ahead of business plan. There's been a steady increase in performance. Eventually that will get to the business case, touch the sort of the run rate level. We're not there yet. The fresh phase one, same thing, continues to ramp up.
Talbot will go live. We'll have a similar pattern, where, you know, it'll be learning curve and some doubling of admin, which is as per plan. Then as you start ramping it up and moving forward, we expect to see sequential improvements as well. Doing it in phases sort of minimises the impact, the overall impact. You know, we're trading, we're reducing labor, but getting efficiencies in labor at the expense of depreciation. I'm pleased with the year-over-year depreciation expanse, 3.7, given the investment that we're making. That's in line with our expectation, and I'm pleased with that number. You know, steady improvements, but we're not done yet.
There's still some phases to go, but we expect for that to continue.
Just to pick up on that, the frozen DC in Toronto, as you know, is a fully automated facility, basically. Fixed cost. It's a fixed cost operation, pretty much. As we load up the volume as all the DSD, the direct to store deliveries, are transferred into the DC, we're increasing volume and thereby getting productivity gains, efficiency gains, and that's what's helping a lot. It's not quite full yet, but we're getting there. We have transferred pretty much all that's supposed to be done out of there. Now it becomes a question of getting, how should I say? Just gaining more in efficiency in our operations.
In terms of, it's a substantially higher fixed cost operation and most of the volume is in there now. Going forward, it's, it's gonna be tweaks and improving it. We still see room for improvement, but we've received most of the gains.
Earlier in your, in the conference call, I think you said. Did you say there was 95% of the product was now going through the DC? The frozen DC?
Yeah. Yes. For our Ontario stores. From 70% or so, 30% DSD, we're now 95% DC, 5% DSD. That's better for the customers because there's more product on the shelf, and it's better for our efficiency both in the DC and in the store. That's why we did it. We're on our way.
Do you expect to get to 100 or is it 95, 5 is the, where it's gonna plateau?
It might tweak up a little bit, but we're pretty much there.
Okay. All right. Thank you for that. On the cost tied to the launch of your new loyalty program, the cost that you called out this quarter, and as you said, will continue next quarter, I'm assuming those are mostly launch costs. You know, do we see those go away or are they replaced by higher program costs in the future quarters? Are the higher program costs that you're talking about in terms of the increased points, are those funded by vendors or are those funded by expectations for higher sales?
You know, the launch costs are gonna be one-time costs. The going forward costs, points costs, we're gonna pay with increased sales, and we're gonna pay with vendor revenues that we negotiate. That's all gonna be part of the margin of the businesses. You shouldn't put a line, an additional cost on Metro because of this program. This program is to drive sales and drive customer engagement. Yes, it costs money, but it will provide a return.
Yes.
All right. Thank you very much. Good quarter.
Thanks, Michael.
Thank you.
Mr. Kadoch, there are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with your closing remarks.
Before we end the call, I would like to remind everyone that Metro will be hosting an Investor Day on May tenth. A webcast will be available for presentations made by senior management. Please contact me directly or send me an email for more information. Again, thank you all for your interest in Metro, and we will speak again soon to discuss our Q3 results on August ninth. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.