The anticipation of FreshCo opening in 100 Mile is over with a grand opening set for Feb. 6.
“Pretty excited,” said owner Daniel Broddy with the store opening after the Safeway closed in October for the rebranding. “We just closed as a different store and all the sudden – bam – we’re open. It’s really exciting to see it all come together and just be open for the community too. It’s pretty awesome.”
Broddy said that he retained 15 senior employees of the 40 who still worked at Safeway prior to its closure. He said he also hired back some of the students who were working there, so the number of employees rehired in total was around 30.
“We hired 101 people at the job fair,” he said about new hires. “That’s exciting and they are all really great people who are keen on getting back in the job force or trying something new.”
He included that they were looking at only hiring 80 people at the job fair and that around 300 people showed up to the job fair.
All of the hires, according to Broddy, were local.
The FreshCo will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The store is a lot brighter, but that isn’t the only difference.
“We are cheaper than we were before on many things,” said Broddy. “We price match what Safeway never did before.”
The store also has many different guarantees that benefit customers, he says.
However, they don’t have full-service departments.
“What we have is expanded offering on things we’ve never had before in a deli. Broddy said as an example that the store carries skews of cheese that they never had before. They still receive meat from the same facility Safeway got it from and is still fresh, and then is displayed on the counters at the FreshCo. Broddy also said there are more produce offerings.
“We have these huge carts called the ‘tank’ so customers can really load those up. They got loads of space for groceries.”
The store is kicking off it’s opening with a $2,500 donation to the 100 Mile House and District Food Bank.
