Food Basics open in Half Moon Bay: How do prices compare?

As Food Basics opens its first store in Barrhaven’s Halfmoon Bay neighbourhood, CTV’s Peter Szperling conducts a price comparison between the two stores.

The community of Half Moon Bay in Barrhaven is home to Ottawa’s newest grocery store, with the opening of a Food Basics.

Food Basics officially opened its newest location on Cambrian Road Thursday morning. It’s the latest in recent store openings in the Ottawa area, including its first urban store concept on Queen Street.

“We’ve been on an aggressive growth trajectory, especially here in the Ottawa market, with this being our fourth store opening, and we continue to serve underserved communities with our Food Basics concept,” said Hardeep Kharaud, Senior Vice President of Food Basics.

This is the first grocery store in the neighbourhood.

“This is an area of the community that was underserviced with grocery stores. We’ve heard from our customers how excited they are about our opening. And we’re really excited to serve in this community, both from a food perspective and from a pharmacy perspective.”

The 43,000 square foot site features a full-service pharmacy and will employ 125 people, according to Food Basics.

“We’ve been here for like 14 or 15 years, we didn’t have any store near us,” says resident Vithu Sri, who was the first to line up ahead of the stores 8 a.m. opening.

“This is a huge investment in the community,” Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill tells CTV News Ottawa. “Because right now, Half Moon Bay, it’s grown so quickly in terms of residential that there’s very, very little in terms of commercial opportunities in this area.”

Hill says development charges from this store and the commercial taxes are going “straight into paying for our Greenbank realignment, which is next door to this store.”

During the grand opening, Food Basics also donated $5,000 to the Barrhaven Food Cupboard, which helps more than 500 families every month, according to a news release.

Can you save money?

“We focus a lot on price and making sure we have value to our customers,” Kharaud tells CTV News Ottawa.

CTV News compared the prices of five essential grocery items with one of the nearest grocery stores, a Loblaws approximately 4 kilometres north of this Food Basics location.

• 2% milk, 4L bag: $6.25 at both stores
• 12 large eggs: $3.99 at both stores
• Butter, 1 lb. (454g): $4.48 at Food Basics, $5.99 at Loblaws
• Loaf of white bread, 675g: $1.99 at Food Basics, $2.50 at Loblaws
• Extra lean ground beef: $20.92/kg at Food Basics, $25.56/kg at Loblaws ($10.33 for 494g at Food Basics, $11.50 for 450g at Loblaws)

Buying one of each item comes out to $27.04 at Food Basics and $30.23 at Loblaws.

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