Farm Boy will join Sobeys’ Empire

Moments after the owner of the Sobeys chain announced it was taking over Ottawa-based Farm Boy on Monday, Shannon M took to Twitter to level a warning at the grocery giant.

“I swear to god, Sobeys, if you screw up Farm Boy, hometown or no, you will be dead to me,” the tweet said.

People who shop at Farm Boy are passionate, acknowledged Michael Medline, CEO of Empire Co. Ltd., Sobeys’ parent company.

“I promise, Shannon, we won’t screw up,” Medline said in a conference call with industry analysts. “We don’t want to ruin the magic of Farm Boy.”

Executives on both sides of the $800-million deal made a point Monday of saying Farm Boy stores won’t be changing.

Farm Boy will be managed separately from Empire’s broader operations, according to terms of the deal that’s expected to be finalized in early 2019. Farm Boy founder Jean-Louis Bellemare and his co- CEO Jeff York will continue in their roles.

The sale to Empire will allow Farm Boy to “turbo-charge” plans to expand in southwestern Ontario, especially Toronto, company officials said.

Plans call for Farm Boy to double the number of stores in the next five years. Some Sobeys stores may be converted to Farm Boys.

Bellemare and his girlfriend — now wife — opened the first Farm Boy store in Cornwall in 1981. The chain now has 26 locations across southeastern Ontario.

“I assure you, nothing will change,” Bellemare said in the conference call. Meetings with

the Sobey family and executives at Empire convinced him they were “very focused on the customer experience,” he said.

Farm Boy already had plans to expand, with a dozen locations in Toronto “in the pipeline,” executives said. Empire will provide help with logistics and real estate, Medline said in the call.

The two Farm Boy stores that opened in the Greater Toronto Area last year have been a hit, officials said.

“We are going to hit it out of the park in Toronto,” York told analysts.

Sales in the first year at the two Toronto area stores were 35 per cent higher than the average Farm Boy store’s, said Mike Vels, chief financial officer of Empire.

Medline said Farm Boy has a winning formula, calling it a “jewel of an asset.”

The stores focus on fresh produce, much of it locally sourced, ready-to-eat prepared foods and private-label products.

Farm Boy began its private label in 2012 and now offers 500 products.

Farm Boy stores are also more profitable than the average grocery chain, according to statistics from Empire.

There are 14 Farm Boys in Ottawa.

I promise, … we won’t screw up. We don’t want to ruin the magic of Farm Boy.