Seeking a bigger piece of the ethnic foods market, one of Eastern Canada’s biggest supermarket firms has bought control of a Montreal-area chain of Mediterranean-style grocery stores.
Metro Inc. on Wednesday announced a partnership agreement with Marche Adonis, giving Metro a 55 per cent stake in the smaller company and its distribution business, Phoenicia Products, for an undisclosed sum.
The company’s founders, Lebanese-born entrepreneurs Elie and Jamil Cheaib and George Grhayeb, will keep a 45 per cent stake and continue to manage both the Adonis and Phoenicia businesses.
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“This partnership will allow us to better meet the needs of the various cultural communities and increase our market share in the fast-growing ethnic foods category,” Metro CEO Eric La Fleche said in a release.
La Fleche described Marche Adonis as “a unique food concept in Canada, very popular with its customers, that has been successful for over 30 years.”
The deal includes the three Marche Adonis stores in Montreal, one in Laval and a fifth store that’s scheduled to open by the end of this year in Brossard.
The partnership with Metro is expected to “enable us to accelerate the development of our business and promote the Adonis banner in Quebec and in Ontario,” Adonis’ co-owner Jamil Cheaib said in Metro’s release.
“Highly loyal”
Marche Adonis opened its first store in Montreal in 1979 and expanded to Laval in 1998, expanding its other stores to supermarket scale over the years. The stores include butcher shops offering lamb, beef, pork, veal and poultry, as well as delicatessens, bakeries, fresh produce and Adonis’ Grills, an in-store hot food takeout service.
Phoenicia Products, the Adonis partners’ import and distribution business, markets grocery goods under its own Phoenicia and Cedar brands through a distribution centre in Montreal and one in Toronto, with products including cheeses, dried fruits, bagged and canned vegetables, olives, grains, herbs, spices, sauces, condiments and marinades.
“Our culture, our working methods, our range of products and most importantly our employees, will remain in place to continue to serve our highly loyal customers,” Cheaib said.
Montreal-based Metro, which operates 600 grocery stores and 250 drugstores under various banners in Ontario and Quebec, recently booked profits of $124.9 million on sales of $3.58 billion in its third quarter ending July 2.
