In an age of big-chain stores and online shopping, an Albertan grocery chain is betting on people’s support for local foods and businesses as it expands in the Edmonton area.
Freson Bros. has 15 grocery stores in Alberta — and with one to be open in Fort Saskatchewan in 2018 and another in Edmonton in 2020, the company hopes their service and products will beat out a little extra convenience.
“A lot of it is IT-driven. A lot of it is impersonal,” Freson Bros. president Doug Lovsin told CBC’s Radio Active. “[Our stores] feel like you go back in time … where old-fashioned service meets a modern experience.”
Lovsin said his company faces stiff competition with other grocery chains and online shopping, but said the company’s shift in how they run their business will propel them to success.
His company faced a similar shift when Freson Bros. first started as a meat market.
“Within the first year, they recognized that competition was changing — almost like what’s happening with us, except through the internet,” Lovsin said.
The company opted to make a shift from selling just meat to groceries. More recently, the company has focused on ready-made meals and serving ready-to-eat food in their stores.
“We’ve moved in the direction where people can pop in and get a quick meal — and I don’t mean just fried chicken,” he said.
The stores also have buffets and salad bars. The Fort Saskatchewan store, which Lovsin said should open by the end of May, will have a 90-seat licensed restaurant.
Edmonton’s location, which should open in 2020, may even have a bit more than that. “We’re going to push the envelope a little bit, more in the food side, for the Rabbit Hill location,” Lovsin said.
Regardless of what kinds of bells and whistles the new store have, one thing remains the same: the local business will push local products.
“Dad tells this story of when he bought 100 chickens, he actually had to go catch them before he could take them to his butcher shop,” Lovsin said.
It might not be quite like that anymore, but the drive to sell local products remains the same.