The Body Shop shuts down all US operations, closes dozens of stores in Canada

The Body Shop has shut down all of its US-based operations and will be closing dozens of Canadian store locations as it files for bankruptcy.

It is not known what the impact of the latest moves will be on Australian arm of the business. There are more than 60 The Body Shop stores in Australia.

Nine.com.au has reached out to The Body Shop Australia for comment.

About 75 of its shops are set to close in the UK and 489 jobs cut. However, The Body Shop would keep 116 UK stores open, according to the BBC.

High inflation in recent years has hurt traditional retailers, particularly those like The Body Shop that predominantly operated out of malls and were aimed at the struggling middle class.

The Body Shop, known for products it markets as natural, sustainable, ethical and cruelty-free, was founded in 1976 in the UK by human rights activist and environmental campaigner Anita Roddick. It was one of the first companies to prohibit testing on animals for many of its products.

In 2019 it was certified as a “B Corp,” a designation given to companies that meet certain transparency and environmental conscientiousness standards.

Since its inception, The Body Shop has changed hands several times. It was purchased by cosmetics giant L’Oréal in 2006 for more than a billion dollars, before being sold to Brazilian company Natura in 2017 for another billion dollars.

The brand has been ailing in recent years. In an early 2023 report, Natura noted that The Body Shop was “(facing) headwinds” with a year-over-year decline of 13.5 percent in 2022, a year the company said “was far from easy” for the brand.

Its direct-to-consumer channels, which had “benefitted during Covid,” returned to “more normalised pre-pandemic levels,” further impacting sales numbers, Natura said.