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Originally Posted by megadude
I know of Save On, but have never been. Hadn't heard of Buy Low. Why are they expensive if those are the names? Are they at least classy inside? Both names are tacky and are trying to convey the discount message. No Frills, Food Basics and Price Chopper are tacky and actually have discount prices.
I was at Eataly on Bloor a few weeks ago for a work function. For the couple years before that I actually assumed Eataly was a middle tier restaurant that served comfort Italian food and nothing fancy. The name sounds tacky to me. Turns out it's far from it.
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We need to step back. Jimmy Pattison is the self made billionaire of BC. He is new money. Started as a used car sales man and then owned the dealership. He has perfected the art of acquiring related but business business over several decades. He owns the radio stations that run the advertising. He owns SunRype who makes the apple juice they sell. He owns the fishing licenses, processing plants and canneries etc. He owns Oceans that does cranberries. Over time he purchased a number of grocery banners in BC. They recently merged all the back-end operations and like Sobeys and Loblaws have several consumer facing brands. So that group has Quality Foods (on the Island), Urban Fair (upscale downtown), Choices (upscale organic), Meinhart (upscale butcher), Buy Low (mid-market), Save-On-Foods (mid-market). I don't think they have a discount brand. The Buy Low stores tend to be smaller and more common in smaller markets a little cheaper but not deeply discounted.
The Save-On-Foods stores are quite nice inside, full service deli, instore bakery etc. At some point they started to run computer models that figured out how to optimize pricing. These stores are generally unionized and pay fairly good salaries. When they were founded they were lower cost but over time they repositioned I guess.
The old money is H Y Louie Company. They own IGA (west of the Rockies), Fresh St Market (similar to Whole Foods), and London Drugs.