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Mac's Convenience Stores

Mac's Convenience Stores, Inc.
Subsidiary
Industry Retail (Convenience stores)
Founded Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada (1961)
Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Number of locations
5,906
Number of employees
52,000
Parent Alimentation Couche-Tard
Website www.macs.ca
(Eastern Canada)
www.mymacs.ca
(Western Canada)

Mac's Convenience Stores is a chain of convenience stores in Canada. The company is divided into three geographic business units: Eastern Canada, Central Canada, and Western Canada. It has been owned and operated by Alimentation Couche-Tard since 1999.

Kenneth (Ken) and Carl McGowen incorporated Mac's Milk Limited in Ontario on April 4, 1962. On July 5, 1963, Silverwood Dairies Limited acquired 40% of the shares of Mac's Milk Limited, and increased its holding to 80% on March 29, 1968, and 100% on January 12, 1972.

In 1971, the company purchased 18 convenience stores operating under the "Little Z Convenience Stores" banner from Zehrs Markets. In 1974, it bought thirteen Mini-Mart convenience stores in Vancouver from a subsidiary of George Weston Limited and seven Starlite Variety Stores operating in Windsor, Ontario.

The company was renamed "Mac's Convenience Stores Limited" on May 7, 1975.

In 1976, Silverwood Dairies Limited purchased shares of Royal Oak Dairy, including operations of convenience stores under the Bantam and Astro names. In 1994, the company sold most Mac's stores in Quebec to Alimentation Couche-Tard Ltd. Mac's stores in Quebec were renamed "Dépan-Escompte Couche-Tard".

Silcorp, the parent company of Mac's, acquired 163 Southern Ontario stores, and assets of rival Becker's in November 1996. On April 14, 1999, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. purchased Silcorp (including the Mac's and Becker's chains). Mac's dropped its longtime cat logo, and replaced it with Couche-Tard's owl logo.

On September 23, 2015, Alimentation Couche-Tard announced that as part of a global re-branding, all Mac's stores would be converted to Couche-Tard's Circle K banner; the Canadian re-naming will begin in May 2017.

In May 2006, Mac's introduced a memorable advertising campaign for its Froster beverage. The campaign centred on the Whack flavour and used double entendres involving the word, such as "I think I could have a Whack every day if I could", and humorously censored "Whack" in the commercials.


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