Mac Stores Gets A New Alias: Circle K

After being in business in Canada with multiple stores across the country since the early 1970s, Mac store will change their name and be called Circle K, after a brand in the U.S., Mac’s (Alimentation Couch-Tard), the brand that brought about the period of chain convenience store to the country will be out of business with the owner of Quebec’s Alimentation Couche-Tard retiring. Couche-Tard wants to take up the Circle K brand for majority of its places in Europe and North America where it’s located.

The company went into business in 1962. Back then it was known as Mac’s Milk. It started to spread across the country in the mid-1970s, taking the place of Pop and Mom convenience stores. The Mac Convenience Stores Ltd. which is owned by Silverwood Diaries Ltd. was a store for household food stuffs and other staples shopping. They would usually open on Sundays, days that other retail shops were closed. Mac’s offered their services to consumers till the late hours of Sunday nights.

When Becker’s Convenience stores in Ontario was taken over in 1996, it had a total of 1,004 stores in Canada. After the chain was purchased in 1999 by Alimentation Couche-Tard, the major Quebec operator of the convenience store spread out into Europe and America and purchased 2,000 Circle K stores back in 2004 in America. Mac will no longer go by its name in Canada by next year according to an announcement made by Couche-Tard. The name Circle K is a household name used by the store banner, which will be rolled out in 2017 in Europe and the U.S. Nevertheless, the Couche-Tard banner will still be kept by the company.

No one will get to lose their job at the 800 Mac Convenience store across the country. About 5 Circles K stores in Atlantic Canada are already being operated by them. The Pantry’s Kangaroo Express and Scandinavia’s Statoil store brand will be closed down.