The former IGA grocery store in Port Moody is staying in the family, but with a new twist.
Georgia Main Food Group, that operates the IGA and Fresh St. Market brands in B.C., is reopening the location at 221 Ioco Rd. that closed last October as its first Asian supermarket.
Meiga supermarket will offer Asian products, along with fresh produce and meats, an open kitchen with ready-to-serve hot foods including traditional Chinese take-out, Cantonese barbecue, beef and pork that’s been raised without antibiotics, hot pot and sushi. There will also be a bakery and juice bar.
“Meiga will offer quality Asian products in an atmosphere of discovery where new, authentic and exclusively sourced products are part of our customers’ everyday shopping,” said Georgia Main’s chief operating officer Gary Sorenson in a news release, adding the company plans to bring a “fresh view” to the Asian supermarket experience.
“We will constantly be on discovery for new items found through travel and food exploration throughout North America and Asia."
The company said Meiga means “beautiful family” in Chinese.
“Family is where we begin and community is where we end — and in between Meiga Supermarket delivers a new grocery and food experience”
Sorenson said the Port Moody location will be a flagship for Georgia Main’s planned expansion of its new brand to additional supermarkets over the next three to five years.
Georgia Main Food Group, formerly known as H.Y. Louie., has operated in B.C. since 1903. When it closed the Port Moody IGA in October, it said staff were encouraged to apply for jobs at the nearby IGA grocery story on Heritage Mountain in Coquitlam.
The closure left Port Moody with only one remaining full-service grocery store — Thrifty’s in Suter Brook Village.
However, Bosa Foods has applied to build a new four-storey rental building on the south side of St. Johns Street at Queens Street that will include a 9,400 sq. ft. specialty food shop. And Vancouver-based PCI Developments is planning to build a 40,000 sq. ft. grocery store at the base of two 39-storey rental towers its proposing for Spring Street, near the Moody Centre SkyTrain station.
The new Meiga supermarket is expected to open early next year.
