Local Farm Boy store not part of sold chain

Peterborough’s Farmboy Market is not part of the Farm Boy grocery chain set to be purchased by the owner of Sobeys, Empire Co. Ltd. in an $800 million deal announced Monday.

Located at Lansdowne St. W. and Erskine Ave. since January 1964, the Peterborough supermarket is owned and operated by the Strano family.

Family members are currently unavailable and a manager at the store declined comment when reached Tuesday.

Farmboy Markets Ltd. is a member of the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, Distribution Canada Inc., and Lumsden Brothers (Sobeys) and carries products from local companies including Reid’s Dairy, Quaker Oats, Pepsi, Minute Maid and some local farmers in the summer.

Former Strano Foodservice president William Strano – who was involved in all three Strano family business, including Strano Wholesale, Brookside Markets and Farmboy Markets – died earlier this year.

His father opened a produce shop in Peterborough in 1919, later opening Strano Wholesale on Simcoe and Bethune streets in 1939. His and his brothers took over the business in 1949 before opening Brookside in 1959 and purchasing Farmboy Markets in 1963.

Strano Foodservice merged with Sysco in 1996, the same year Brookside Markets – located in a former dance hall on Highway 7 – burned down.

The Farm Boy involved in the Sobeys deal is a chain in Eastern Ontario based in Ottawa. All it shares with the local store is its name.

Empire Co. Ltd.’s president and chief executive Michael Medline said it aims to “turbocharge” the Ottawa-based chain and double its business and footprint from its current base of 26 Ontario stores over the next five years.

This acceleration of growth would be done through a mix of new sites and conversions of some existing Sobeys locations, the company said.

The first Farm Boy store opened in Cornwall in 1981.

NOTE: For more information about Farmboy Market at 754 Lansdowne St. W, call 705-7452811, visit www.farmboypeterborough.ca or email store@farmboypeterborough.ca .