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A new grocery store has opened up in Kamloops.
Fresh Street Market staff cut the ribbon in front of the newest store at Aberdeen Mall this morning. The 36,000-square-foot store features gourmet donuts, a cheese department and deli counter, among other things.
"We’re extremely excited. It’s been a long time coming; the first time I walked into this building was three years ago," says Mark McCurdy, vice-president of retail operations with parent company Georgia Main Food Group.
Fresh Street joins Marshalls and Old Navy in filling the space left at the mall when Sears shut down its Canadian operations.
"It's been a lot of planning, a lot of execution. COVID did play into it a lot," says McCurdy. "We were concerned we wouldn’t be able to open but we’ve worked with mall management at Aberdeen Mall. They’ve been absolutely fantastic with us."
The new store is physically the largest of the six Fresh Street Markets (most are based in the Lower Mainland, with one in Whistler) and has 130 full- and part-time employees. McCurdy says it's the first time Georgia Main, which started 115 years ago as H.Y. Louie, has had a location in Kamloops.
"This location sort of fell into our lap when Sears closed, but at the same time we researched the market and just felt there was a good opportunity for us," he says.
With the ongoing pandemic and Christmas coming it was important to get the location open.
"Families are going to be close together and we want to provide that opportunity for them to shop, and get something a little special this year," he says.
Fresh Street will bring unique items to Kamloops, McCurdy adds, as it enters a market already occupied by large grocery stores like Superstore, Costco, Save-On-Foods and FreshCo and smaller specialty places like Natures Fare, Twin Rivers, Old Town Market, FraserCart and Eastuff.
"There are products we carry that no one else does, whether it’s unique cheeses — we have a world champion cheese from the Rogue River in Oregon," McCurdy says. "We have a selection of pasta and sauces that nobody has seen, we have Asian sauces that you just don’t get anywhere else; we have a lot of things going for us."
The store will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
