With renovations currently underway at the Prairie Sky Co-op Food Store in Weyburn, General Manager Kevin Arthur said so far the exterior work is nearing completion, and work in the back room with a rebuilt meat cutting room and walk-in freezers and coolers has been done behind the scenes.
Work is now underway on the sales floor, which will impact customers somewhat.
“Our customers will notice, they have been removing flooring and taking out some old refrigeration cases. For the next few weeks, we're going to be short quite a few freezer doors so we've consolidated into our other freezers to have a limited selection, but we are going to be short product for the next few weeks. Items like frozen veggies and pizzas and french fries have been worked into our ice cream freezer, which will stay until the next phase.”
Arthur assures the limitations will only be temporary until new freezers are installed.
“We're working hard to get full freezer doors back in for the Christmas season. We've designed a plan that actually is harder for us and our contractors to do, but it limits the downtime for our customers of certain sections.”
He said they are using a “phased-in approach” which may impact service levels in different departments.
“Unfortunately, there will be times throughout this renovation where we're not going to be at the service levels that we'd like to be all the time. But in the end, we're going to have a really modern facility with reliable equipment that everybody can enjoy.”
Exterior work will be completed in December with new signage, January will mark the beginning of renovations to the bakery department.
“That's going to have to be closed for a period of time because there's no other way to do it. There's going to be those hiccups, but we've kind of pushed that one off because we didn't want to not have a bakery for Christmas.”
More commercial bread and bakery products will be brought in to accommodate baked-in-store products.
Arthur added renovation work will become more noticeable with the upcoming projects, but they will continue posting updates, and staff will be available to answer questions and assist in navigating the store amidst the work.
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