Save-On-Foods is launching a major expansion of up to 40 stores in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Darrell Jones, president of the Langley-based company, has announced.
The first will open this year in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, followed by others by 2016 in Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw.
Save-On-Foods, part of the Overwaitea Food Group owned by billionaire Jimmy Pattison, will also open three stores in Winnipeg. In all, the new stores will create more than 4,000 jobs, Jones estimated.
The stores will be a combination of existing buildings and new construction, and will range from 30,000 square feet to 65,000 square feet on average, depending on the market.
In some cases, Save-On-Foods will be taking space previously occupied by Quebec-based Sobeys. This is the case in Yorkton, where the company will demolish the existing Sobeys store in the Parkland Mall to open the first Save-On-Foods in Saskatchewan by this fall.
The outlet will be approximately 32,000 square feet – about the same as the former Sobeys – a size Jones characterized as a “nice, comfortable grocery store.”
The Yorkton store is not the only recent Jimmy Pattison investment in the farming community of southeastern Saskatchewan.
In February, the Jim Pattison Group (JPG) bought Maple Farm Equipment of Yorkton. JPG plans a commercial development on a portion of the Maple Farm lands.•
