Four Winnipeg Safeways make way for FreshCos

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This article was published 31/08/2020 (1614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The transformation of four city Safeways into discount grocery stores will begin this September.

On Sept. 19, the Safeway on Sargent Avenue and the one in Niakwa Village will close so they can be converted into FreshCos. People will not be able to shop for goods, but the stores’ pharmacies will remain open.

The pharmacy at Safeway on Sargent Avenue will be moved to the front of the building for easy access; there will be a pathway to the pharmacy in the Niakwa Village location. The gas bar at the Niakwa Village location will also remain open.

The Safeway at the intersection of Pembina Highway and McGillivray Boulevard will shutter on Sept. 26. Like its fellow stores, its pharmacy will remain open.

The Safeway on Henderson Highway near Bronx Park, which has been closed since 2015, will undergo renovations to become a FreshCo as well.

All stores are slated to open as the discount shops in the spring.

The conversions come more than five years after Sobeys bought Safeway Canada’s stores for $5.8 billion. Empire Company Limited, which owns Sobeys, announced in December of 2017 that it would change up to 25 per cent of its 255 Safeway and Sobeys stores in Western Canada to FreshCos. The corporation cited underperformance as the reason for the changes.

On June 9, they announced the four Safeways in Manitoba would become FreshCos, along with two locations in Alberta.

Winnipeg already has two FreshCos. Both were formerly Safeway stores and opened in May 2019 and are around 45,000 square feet. One store is at Jefferson Avenue and McPhillips Street; the other is at Regent Avenue and Lagimodiere Boulevard. They have Cantor’s Express butcher counters, which are run by Winnipeg family-owned Cantor’s Quality Meats & Groceries.

FreshCo offers different deal options. The grocery chain price matches, and they’ll replace and reimburse products customers aren’t satisfied with. If someone can’t find a product they saw in a flyer, FreshCo will give a rain check and 10 per cent off the advertised price.

There are over 100 FreshCos in Ontario and Western Canada. Empire launched the discount chain in 2010. Empire also owns IGA, Foodland, Farm Boy, Thrifty Foods and Lawton Drugs,

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca