This No Frills owner got his start as a meat clerk
Welcome to The Shopkeepers, Canadian Grocer’s new series profiling store owners and managers. Here, readers will hear from store-level leaders about their grocery careers and what makes their supermarket special—from unique offerings to community connections. Have a pitch? Email digital editor Jillian Morgan at [email protected].
Before opening Canada’s 350th No Frills in Warman, Sask., Aureo Perez had already built relationships with some of his future customers.
During his five years operating a No Frills in Saskatoon, he learned that residents of nearby Warman and Martensville were regularly making the trip to his store—some at least twice a week.
So when the opportunity came to bring the Loblaw Companies discount banner to Warman, Perez jumped at the chance to better serve those regulars.
“I really wanted to test my skills and get out of my comfort zone with this new concept of No Frills,” he tells Canadian Grocer. The 34,000-square-foot store is the first No Frills in Western Canada to feature the discount grocery banner’s new format with a hybrid timber-and-steel design.
For Perez, opening Aureo’s No Frills and building a new team was an opportunity to put his experience to work.
His grocery career began 13 years earlier, when he arrived in Canada from the Philippines. Within two weeks, Perez secured a part-time job as a clerk in the meat department at Extra Foods (a defunct grocery banner formerly owned by Loblaw Companies) in Melfort, Sask. His first store manager encouraged him to look beyond his department and learn more about the grocery business. “He never treated me like a part-time kid,” Perez recalls.
Perez began asking other department managers about their work. He was particularly interested in produce, seeing an opportunity to introduce fruits and vegetables familiar to Filipino and Indian newcomers moving into the community.
This initiative helped Perez move into produce management. But he still found satisfaction helping customers on the shop floor, whether that be finding an item, answering questions or packing groceries. “With that little service, customers tend to come back,” he says. “They start to know you.”
Perez later became an assistant manager at an Extra Foods in Humboldt, Sask. When that store converted to No Frills, he started thinking about becoming an owner.
“I didn’t want to stop learning. I didn’t want to stop achieving,” he says.
Later, through No Frills’ franchise training program, he visited stores in other provinces, learning from owners and experienced department managers before taking over his first store in Saskatoon.
As an owner, he supported school snack programs and became involved with local nonprofits and Filipino community organizations. He used social media to promote deals and highlight his team’s hard work—an approach he believes helped build relationships with customers beyond Saskatoon.
In Warman, he’s drawing on that experience to serve shoppers from the city and surrounding communities. (Keep scrolling to see how Perez is bringing his social media savvy to Aureo's No Frills.)
Perez sees the store’s broader assortment as a way to save customers a trip to Saskatoon, particularly in the winter. An everyday essentials aisle carries items such as coffee makers, toaster ovens and children’s lunch kits. Hot barbecue and Portuguese-style chicken provide meal options, while in-store baked goods have become popular with high school students at lunchtime.
Perez also wants to build the kind of community partnerships that were part of running his Saskatoon store. He donated $1,500 to the Warman Food Bank on opening day and hopes to work with schools in Warman and Martensville by donating snacks. “I have a six-year-old kid… I hate when I see kids who are going to school hungry," he says.
Employing local students matters to him, too. Warman reminds him of his time at Extra Foods in Melfort, where he watched young employees gain experience before leaving for college. Running into former staff years later remains a source of pride, he says.
At his No Frills in Warman, Perez has so far hired 115 employees, including many local students, and says he is still recruiting.
Being chosen to operate the milestone store is not only motivating but a vote of confidence from Loblaw, he says: “The company put a lot of trust in me."
He also hopes to help develop other aspiring owners, just as his managers and mentors helped him.
Five years into store ownership, Perez figures he’s just getting started, too. “I want to be an owner for the next 20 years,” he says.
