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Originally Posted by ue
All of this is to say that there should be a grocery store downtown as the place is currently a food desert.
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The #1 thing to keep in mind when talking about grocery stores and "food deserts" is retail is first and foremost a
for profit business. If there is not money to be made there is no business. Does anyone seriously think the Bay basement grocery store was a huge revenue generator and they shut it down "just cause"? Even if the Bay didn't want to deal with the supply chain issues for a single grocery store if it was a big money maker they would have been using the actual sales numbers to land a tenant such as the big grocery players to take over and use space in their building. That nothing happened tells us everything we need to know there -- at
best it was break even and was likely a slight lose leader to get people into the building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ue
As for who, well, Save On has pushed into the Winnipeg market, and have done urban format stores elsewhere.
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Save-On-Foods opened three stores in Winnipeg, one of which is significantly undersized v competitors. They have also heavily promoted their click and delivery model since. There have been numerous other opportunities to move into spaces in more suburban areas. In the five years since first coming here they have only announced plans for two more stores. Chances of them risking cannibalizing their existing delivery service sales to open what is likely to be a high shrink store downtown are extremely slim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ue
Safeway, Sobeys, and Loblaws (particularly their ‘CityMarket’ or No Frills brand) would also work.
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Sobeys/Safeway/FreshCo - The merger resulted in them taking a significant hit in terms of overall financial performance since. In the seven years since the deal first became public Winnipeg has seen round after round of store closures as a result. FreshCo is also a heavily franchised, especially in the highest shrink/lose categories. In terms of franchised supermarkets nothing is stopping a local operator from coming forward to make one happen downtown. Reality is there are better opportunities for your investment in suburban Winnipeg.
Loblaws/NoFrills - The Weston family has gone all-in on getting food to urban markets like downtown Winnipeg to the point their Holt Renfrew business was effectively paused before the pandemic even happened. The model for urban markets is currently what you see in Shoppers. They have done experiments with very limited selections of fresh produce in Shoppers in some markets. Reality is longer term Shoppers will likely become click-and-collect points for the overall Weston brand portfolio. It is also notable that this is the same company that repurposed significant customer facing retail space into an online order fulfilment centre giving you a sense of where they want to be heading. Of the purely Canadian players they also have by far the largest already invested into a shift away from brick and mortar locations. Also NoFrills is exclusive whole-store franchise operated. If you look closely it will be something like "[b]Sam's[b/] NoFrills" or "
Joe's NoFrills". Again, if there was a local (and qualified) franchise operator wanting to take on downtown Winnipeg I doubt the Weston family would say no.
Besides Amazon the other sleeping giant is Walmart. People forget how large a grocery player they truly are. In the USA they have stores that are only groceries. They also have many years already invested in click and collect programs for the American operations. Yes it would require some adaption for Canada however the net investment of what Walmart has today v what Sobeys has gives a significant advantage to Walmart. Also the global buying power of Walmart is significant and can be leveraged in the grocery space to push razor thin margins even lower.
It is also notable Walmart has been talking very publicly on how they are tired of sitting back and being #2 to Amazon. Both Amazon and Walmart have made it clear over the years USA are their main focus markets but the reality is Canada isn't ignored.
So the short version of this is the only chance for a supermarket in downtown Winnipeg is for someone that is not a national grocery players with access to significant capital to step forward and decide they want to open a business that is at best going to be break even. Try taking that to your bank and getting a loan.
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