Alimentation Couche-Tard

History

Alain Bouchard opened his first convenience store in 1980 in Laval. In 1985, Bouchard acquired 11 "Couche-Tard" branded stores in the Quebec City area which he merged with its existing stores in the Montreal area to rename the whole company "Alimentation Couche-Tard". In 1987, the company purchased the 7 Jours chain from Metro-Richelieu, which Couche-Tard has kept a separate chain to this day.

In 1992, the chain gradually converted to the new discount banner "Dépan-Escompte", beginning with 34 stores mostly located in the Quebec City area. In 1993, the company purchased 54 Mac's and La Maisonnée convenience stores from the troubled Silcorp Ltd. of Toronto. In 1994, Couche-Tard completed the conversion of its 182 stores to the Dépan-Escompte banner which included the Mac's/La Maisonnée locations but not the 7 Jours chain. In the summer of 1994, Couche-Tard made a deal to acquire the 86 convenience stores from the Perette chain which had filed for bankruptcy protection in June 1994. During the Dépan-Escompte era, a piggy bank mascot was adopted and replaced the previous Couche-Tard sleepwalker mascot from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In May 1997, Couche-Tard acquired C Corp, a subsidiary of Provigo that owned the chains Provi-Soir in Quebec, Winks in Ontario and Red Rooster in Alberta. Couche-Tard, which was already dominating its industry, grew to 610 outlets in Canada following the transaction. In early 1999, Dépan-Escompte Couche-Tard and Provi-Soir merged into a single branding; reverting to the Couche-Tard name without "Dépan-Escompte" (albeit with a new logotype), but adopting the owl mascot of Provi-Soir. The company has since revived the Provi-Soir name in Quebec which it keeps as a distinct chain, much like the 7 Jours division. The new Provi-Soir, basically a combination of rebranded Couche-Tard and 7 Jours locations, does not feature the owl mascot from the original chain and its logotype is completely different than in its last incarnation.

Similarly, Silcorp had consolidated several of the largest Ontario convenience-store chains, such as Mac's and Becker's, under its ownership before being itself acquired by Couche-Tard. As in Quebec, other corporate banners such as Becker's and Mike's Mart are slowly being phased out in favour of the dominant Mac's brand, although new franchised stores are still being opened under the Winks and Daisy Mart brands.

In 2001, Couche-Tard broke into the American market with the acquisition of 172 Bigfoot convenience stores from Johnson Oil Company of Columbus, Indiana. As part of its United States expansion, the company made another signification acquisition in 2002 by acquiring Hudson, Ohio-based Dairy Mart Convenience Stores, totaling an additional 287 stores. In 2006, it also acquired 54 stores from Akron, Ohio-based Holland Oil. This created a significant presence for the company in Northeast Ohio.