Provincial grocery chain doubles down on Alberta products

The head of a provincial grocery chain says his company will thrive despite stiff competition and online shopping by developing a niche selling Alberta products.

“If we follow the well-trodden beaten path of a conventional grocer, we’re not going to win,” Freson Bros. president Doug Lovsin said, adding big supermarkets such as Superstore, Sobeys and Walmart are based in other provinces or other countries.

“Our mission is to deliver a unique Alberta food experience … There’s really nobody championing Alberta products, Alberta producers. We’re Albertan. We’ve been here for 63 years.”

Lovsin, whose family-owned company runs 15 stores in smaller communities across the province, was part of a panel discussion on retailing put on last week by the University of Alberta School of Business.

Freson Bros., which has about 1,000 employees, aims to set itself apart from the competition with stores offering only Alberta beef, chicken and pork, cutting meat in-house and smoking their own bacon and sausage, Lovsin said.

“Our job in the future is not going to be diminishing the skill set of the artisans who work in our stores … Rather than just copying somebody, we’re looking for our angle.”

The Stony Plain-based company has a new store in Fort Saskatchewan featuring a 90-seat licensed restaurant. It will add about 200 employees when it opens this spring and plans to launch its first big-city outlet on Edmonton’s Rabbit Hill Road in 2020.

Panellist Clint Mahlman, president of London Drugs, said that although giants such as Amazon are putting huge effort into delivering products individually to the homes of shoppers, this is expensive and likely not sustainable.

“The natural ebb and flow of supply and demand over the centuries has never allowed a lot of waste to exist in the supply chain,” he said.

“Consumers are smart. They will start to put it together and say ‘ Why would I pay that cost for a bag of Doritos?’”

One way to compete with websites that sell products cheaper is by providing experiences and personal advice that isn’t available online, Mahlman said.

Brick-and-mortar outlets can also find ways to cut costs — Edmonton’s renovated Oliver Square London Drugs store won’t have inside walls because it’s difficult to predict how much space different areas will require in a few years, he said.

“Walls create cost. Therefore, we have to create a flexible environment.”

Lovsin, whose 84-year-old father Frank Lovsin co-founded Freson Bros. in 1955 and is still involved in the company, says with so many meals eaten outside the home they consider themselves to be in the food business rather than just groceries.

He’s optimistic about their future despite Amazon’s incursions into the retail world.

“We just feel like we have to continue to push the envelope. We don’t have the ability, like some of the others, to continue to roll out dozens of stores … Every one will address the marketplace, will address the neighbourhood and will address the consumer needs.”