Four family-run grocers share their secrets to lasting growth
Country Grocer
Founded: 1984
Store count: 11
Where: British Columbia
Fast fact: Acquired four 49th Parallel Grocery stores in 2023
Craig Calvin was just 14 when he worked his first shift at Country Grocer, ringing through customers at the checkout. From there, he moved through departments, stores and positions—including closing the produce department and prepping it for the next day—learning the business from the ground up.
“You learn the business by doing all these things,” says Cavin, now director of the B.C.-based grocer. “You learn how to do it all by doing it all.”
Country Grocer’s roots date back to 1984, when Wally Large and Henry Zwynenburg founded Nanaimo’s Food Country in Nanaimo, B.C. In 1986, Craig’s parents, Peter and Laura Cavin, opened Mr. Grocer in Victoria-area Esquimalt, followed by a Royal Oak location the next year. The families later came together to form the Island Independent Buying Group, a warehouse and distribution centre, allowing them to increase their buying volumes. Eventually, they unified all their stores under the Country Grocer banner.
The chain now has 11 stores across Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island. Its Island identity remains central to how it operates. “As islanders, we know islanders,” Cavin says. This includes a long-standing commitment to buying from Island farmers, producers and suppliers.
Today’s ownership group includes Cavin and his brother Andrew, along with Tyler Large, Derek Zwynenburg and Megan Knight, also from the founding families. “It’s just having that personal touch,” he says. “I think it’s just still being involved day to day and knowing what’s going on in every store every day.”
Italian Centre Shop
Founded: 1959
Store count: 6
Where: Alberta
Employees: About 900
Fast fact: Carries more than 30,000 products from Italy
When Frank Spinelli arrived in Canada from Italy, the path to becoming a grocer was hardly straightforward. First, he headed north to work in the Yukon’s silver mines before moving south in the late 1950s and investing in a small Edmonton shop, selling Italian confections and newspapers. Those newspapers became an important connection to home for Italian immigrants. Even months out of date, they allowed customers to read in their own language about what was happening in their home country. Soon, customers asked for something else they missed: espresso. Spinelli brought that in too, giving people their newspaper and coffee just as they might have enjoyed in Italy. That willingness to listen became part of the business model.
“Then they wanted this, then they wanted that, and so on and so on,” says his daughter, Teresa Spinelli, who is now president. Today, Italian Centre Shop carries more than 30,000 products from Italy. And a lot more has changed. When Teresa took over in 2000, the company had one store, about 30 employees and $8 million in sales. Now, she says, it has “six, soon to be seven” stores across Edmonton and Calgary, about 900 employees and $150 million in sales.
As the company continues to grow, Spinelli says her objective extends beyond building more stores. It’s about building communities with “integrity and authenticity”—and carrying that forward for generations to come.
Mike Dean Local Grocer
Founded: 1976
Store count: 5
Where: Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec
Fast fact: Fields 1,000 requests for support from local organizations each year
Gordon Dean started working in the family grocery business as soon as he was old enough to be useful—somewhere around age five or six, he says. His early jobs were simple: packing groceries, breaking down cardboard, labelling products, sweeping and dusting. Decades later, he had his own children start much the same way.
“Everything you touch, you need to do well,” says Dean, owner of Mike Dean Local Grocer. “Regardless of what department. Regardless of whether you like it or not.”
It was Dean’s father, Mike, who taught him that lesson. A butcher by trade, Mike started the business in 1976 as a small butcher shop and grocery store in Chesterville, Ont. Today, Mike Dean Local Grocer has five stores, all in small rural communities in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec: Chesterville, Sharbot Lake, Ont., Bourget, Ont., Campbell’s Bay, Que. and Notre-Dame-dela-Salette, Que. Creating a unique model that works in those markets has become the company’s specialty.
Dean sees the stores’ relationship with their towns as central to the business model. “You really take care of your town,” he says, “and your town takes care of you.” Mike Dean stores, in fact, are community hubs—the busiest parts of their downtowns, places where people meet in the parking lot, stop for coffee or linger rather than simply rushing to do groceries.
Masstown Market
Founded: 1969
Store count: 1
Where: Nova Scotia
Fast fact: Processes milk from local dairy farms into bottled milk
What began as a farm-gate fruit and vegetable stand started by Eric Jennings and his wife Priscilla in 1969 has, 57 years later, grown into one of Nova Scotia’s top destinations for tourists and locals alike.
Conveniently located off the Trans-Canada Highway west of Truro, N.S., Masstown Market is now run by Eric’s son Laurie and employs about 200 people. The operation encompasses a full grocery store with a large deli and bakery, garden centre, fish market housed in a lighthouse, fish-and-chip takeout, head-to-tail butcher shop, creamery, café, Petro-Canada service station and an electric vehicle charging station. But this impressive expansion was not the result of a grand master plan. Instead, Jennings says, much of the growth came from paying attention to customers.
In the early days, shoppers who came for farm-grown fruit and vegetables began asking why the market didn’t carry staples such as salad dressing, mayonnaise or peanut butter. His father would head to a local cash-and-carry, buy what customers were requesting and put it on the shelves.
The next generation is also helping shape where the business goes. Jennings’ eldest son, Tristan, studied butchery and charcuterie management and now runs the butcher shop, an investment Jennings says was, in some ways, created around Tristan’s expertise. His younger son, Riley, returned during the COVID-19 pandemic and now works largely in produce and dayto-day market operations.
Despite the scale of the operation, Jennings’ working style remains decidedly hands-on. Most days, he can be found unloading trucks and stocking shelves. “I don’t sit in the office very much,” he says. “I don’t study results or work on budgets. I stock shelves.”
