(File photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Ben Tompkins

Family Business

Co-op purchases long-time family grocery store in Hudson Bay

Sep 6, 2023 | 4:26 PM

Parkland Co-op is adding its first grocery store location in Hudson Bay, by acquiring McDonald’s Family Foods.

Co-op already operates three additional locations within the community, as they have an agro centre, a gas bar/convenience store, and a cardlock.

“It fits into our line of business, and it keeps us active and in the community… I think it’s going to be a great addition to Parkland and to Hudson Bay,” said general manager Todd Svenson.

“The town of Hudson Bay is very familiar with our services, and it just gives our members one more opportunity to support Co-op and for us to help support the community. It just goes hand in hand and we just saw this as an opportunity to continue to grow with that.”

Parkland Co-op also has four locations in Porcupine Plain, with a food store, home centre, gas bar/convenience store and cardlock.

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Svenson explained this diversifies their service to their northeast members and allows them to shop Co-op within their own community.

“It’s important for us to be able to supply product to our members, and on the Hudson Bay side, it’s not a convenient drive by any stretch to go to Porcupine for groceries and we recognized that,” he added.

“With an extra offering in that market, it helps the Parkland club across the board. The more operations we can have, the more diversity we have, the easier it is to withstand some downtime and slow times, and that just makes us stronger.”

As for McDonald’s Family Foods, they are a third-generation, locally-owned, family business, which has been in the community for 65+ years.

According to their owner, Glynn McDonald, it wasn’t an easy decision to sell, but it was time to wind down the weekly working hours for his family.

“It’s a tremendously emotional decision… my grandma purchased the business in 1958 and throughout that time we’ve just been trying to serve the community the best we can and delivering on what the customer wants,” he told northeastNOW. “Certainly looking forward to just kind of going to a normal 40-hour-a-week job.”

Another reason why McDonald ultimately chose to not only sell, but sell to Co-op, was so his employees were guaranteed some level of job security.

Co-op has promised that all the store’s workers will be given a job offer, similar if not the same to what they previously had.

“Choosing the Co-op was important in two respects,” McDonald said. “Firstly, they’re interested in looking after my employees or making sure that they were looked after, and secondly, they are community-oriented and share some of the same values as we do.”

The expected last day of business for McDonald’s Family Foods is September 30, with the Co-op planning on re-opening on October 5.

Financial terms of the transaction were not publicly disclosed.

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news@northeastnow.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8