Coles Group recorded $10.5 billion in total group sales for 1Q25, with supermarkets up 3.5 per cent to $9.5 billion while liquor stayed flat at $851 million. Coles Group CEO, Leah Weckert, said the focus was on creating value for customers and investing in the company’s future through automation.
Cost of living remained a challenge, Weckert said, but overall inflation (excluding tobacco) declined by one per cent, and meat and dairy deflated during the quarter.
On the operations front, the group’s focus has been on bringing its automated distribution centre (ADC) in New South Wales online and ramping up its Sydney and Melbourne customer fulfilment centres to transition next day home delivery away from stores.
It reported a 22.4 per cent increase in eCommerce sales revenue to just over $1 billion, which equates to almost 11 per cent penetration, while liquor was down 1.9 per cent.
Exclusive brand penetration was up 33.1 per cent for Exclusive to Coles. It introduced 108 new products under Exclusive to Coles branding, 19 for Coles Finest and 111 for Coles Simply.
There was also a 22.6 per cent uptick for Exclusive Liquor Brand, with 80 new lines added.
Weckert said liquor sales were flat, reflecting a subdued economic environment and consumers reducing their discretionary spending. Sales were also impacted by the ongoing move away from less profitable bulk and affiliate sales and the CrowdStrike outage.
Its pilot to consolidate Liquorland and Vintage Cellars into Liquorland Cellars and rebrand First Choice Liquor Makert to Liquorland Warehouse will roll out in November in South Australia and a small number of stores in Victoria and Queensland.
The Coles SecondBite Winter Appeal raised more than $1.4 million, providing food relief not-for-profit SecondBite enough to supply the equivalent of 7.4 million meals to around 1000 local community partners across Australia.
The group also ran de-escalation training to team members offering practical steps to defuse and de-escalate a threatening situation, lowering the risk of aggressive behaviours towards team members.
Weckert also announced the group would be constructing its third ADC in Truganina, Victoria, increasing FY25 capital expenditure to around $1.3 billion.
