LITTLE CURRENT—When it comes to groceries, GG’s Foodland, located in a prominent site on Highway 6 before the swing bridge, has long been a staple on the Little Current scene, but unless something changes in the next couple of months, the doors will close on September 24.
“It was a business decision made by (parent company) Sobey’s,” said franchisee Diane (Deedee) Tessier. “That’s all we have been told.”
The news was all bad for the 20-odd full- and part-time employees.
“I have been working for 50 years and I am just about ready to retire,” said Ms. Tessier, “but I would have liked to have made the decision myself.”
Ms. Tessier said that she feels bad for the employees who have been working so hard during the pandemic to help keep people’s larders stocked. “I feel bad for all the people we deliver groceries to, too,” she said.
Ms. Tessier has been the GG’s Foodland franchisee for 13 years. “I took it over when Ed (Laidley) left,” she said. “He wanted me to buy it, but I told him that if I had that kind of money I wouldn’t be working for him,” she laughed. “That’s when we came up with the idea of me taking over as a franchisee.”
While the decision to close has been made, Ms. Tessier said she wasn’t giving up hope. “Sobey’s still holds the lease on the property,” she said. “You never know what can happen over the summer. Someone might step forward with a plan.”
In the meantime, the decision has left people scrambling to find new positions, some of them for the second time this pandemic as their previous employers had closed.
Inquiries made to Sobey’s head office communications department by The Expositor have not yet been returned.
GG’s was begun nearly 50 years ago in the same location by Little Current resident Grenville Green and his wife Brenda who came back to his home town with a great deal of experience in the wholesale and retail grocery business.
Mr. Green’s initial concept was a seven-day-a-week grocery store, open daily until 9 pm and with an experienced butcher always in the butcher shop, ready to cut meat to order.
Mr. Green more than doubled the size of the original store, adding more parking in the process, before retiring and selling the business to Ed Laidley.
