Thrifty cuts jobs as part of financial processing shift

British Columbia’s Thrifty Foods is eliminating 17 jobs as part of a plan to transfer its financial processing systems to Sobeys, its parent company.

According to an article in the Victoria Times Colonist, the processing systems will be handled by Sobeys as of the end of January.

The switch is purely for cost savings purposes, according to the company. "The grocery and economic landscape is changing, and we had to find ways to strengthen our business to compete with the Walmarts of the world and other big-box stores," Erin Kelly, Thrifty Foods manager of communications, told the newspaper.

Sobeys recently announced that it will build a new distribution centre for Thrifty Foods in Victoria at a cost of $31 million. It will replace an older Thrifty Foods warehouse on Vancouver Island. Staff from the old facility will be transferred to the new one when it's completed sometime late in 2012.

Since N.S.-based Sobeys bought Thrifty Foods three years ago, it has upgraded eight stores, opened seven new stores and added a warehouse in Surrey, B.C., at a total cost of $90 million.