(Quebec) Are automated convenience stores without clerks a solution in remote villages hit by labour shortages, an aging population and closing businesses? Quebec seems to think so.
What you need to know
- Municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants are increasingly lacking shops, one in five according to the latest figures.
- Entrepreneurs from Bas-Saint-Laurent have developed a self-service convenience store concept that is aimed precisely at these declining villages.
- The government has just granted funds to enable a municipality in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean to open two of these businesses.
The government has just granted $373,000 to a municipality of 159 inhabitants to enable it to set up two “automated food service hubs”. A solution that is being considered by devitalized villages across Quebec.
Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, north of Lac Saint-Jean, still has a community grocery store. But it is run by volunteers. It is only open on Wednesday afternoons.
“The volunteers went to town to pick up the specific products that customers requested, in Dolbeau. It’s a 60 km round trip,” explains the mayor of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Rita De Launière.
“From time to time, volunteers even answered calls outside of business hours for emergency products. These volunteers gave terribly, but they need to take a breather,” adds the mayor of this aging village made up largely of “grandparents,” as she calls them.
Everything is about to change this fall, with the planned opening of a self-service convenience store, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Jeannois village will become the second in Quebec, after Saint-Léandre in Bas-Saint-Laurent, to open a LIB convenience store.
More and more villages without shops
“We originally developed this concept for our municipality, to save the village convenience store,” says Camille Therrien-Tremblay, President and CEO of Microcommerce LIB in Saint-Léandre.
The opening of the convenience store without a clerk in the summer of 2023 was publicized and the company’s phone started ringing. “We started getting calls from municipalities all over Quebec, from around Carleton, from the Kamouraska region, to Val-d’Or…” says Mme Therrien-Tremblay: “The problem of food deserts in Quebec is obvious. I was struck by the magnitude of the problem.”
The proportion of Quebec villages without businesses continues to grow, year after year. In 2006, 11.6% of municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants had no retail establishments. The proportion jumped to 21.5% in 2023.
“Saint-Léandre is a village of 360 inhabitants, devitalized, with an aging population,” explains the boss of LIB. “We are 25 km from the next food service. Losing the convenience store would have been difficult.”
Open at all times
The concept of these convenience stores without service is quite simple. You have to swipe a credit card or a membership card to enter. The customer helps himself and then pays for his merchandise, under the gaze of surveillance cameras. “We don’t have any thefts,” assures Mme Therrien-Tremblay.
She estimates that it takes 10 to 15 hours a week to manage the business, especially inventory. A major advantage: the convenience store is open at all times.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY LIB DÉPANNEUR
The interior of the LIB convenience store in Saint-Léandre.
“The problem with convenience stores closing all over the region is that the fixed costs are too high, especially in human resources,” she says. The entrepreneur estimates that each convenience store costs about $150,000 to set up.
In Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, there were two grocery stores in the 1970s. But the village declined, as did its population. The businesses closed. The community grocery store helped save the day, but the volunteers are exhausted, warns Mayor Rita De Launière.
The nearest convenience store is 17 km from the village. “That’s 34 km for a pint of milk,” illustrates M.me From Launiere.
The Quebec grant, from the Société du Plan Nord, will be used to transform the small community grocery store into a self-service convenience store. A second service point will also be opened at the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette snowmobile relay, where it is increasingly difficult to operate a restaurant. In total, with the help of the MRC, the project totals $460,000 for the two locations.
The mayor notes that several neighbouring villages, north of Lac Saint-Jean, will follow the project with interest. “We really need a service like this. We are the focal point of this project in the Maria-Chapdelaine MRC. People want to see how it works, to eventually implement it in their area.”
The MRC prefect views the project favorably. Luc Simard notes that several villages are victims of a vicious circle: their last business is only open a few hours a week due to lack of demand, which is not practical for consumers, who turn away from it, further reducing demand…
“These automated businesses open 24 hours a day really change everything,” notes the MRC prefect, who is not afraid that this type of subsidized business will harm those already established in the surrounding area. “We’re talking about villages that no longer have any businesses!”