No Frills (grocery store)
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- For the eastern Nebraska and western Iowa "No Frills" chain, please see No Frills (US).
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| Type | Supermarket |
| Founded | 1978 |
| Headquarters | East York, Ontario |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Bakery, beer, charcuterie, dairy, deli, frozen foods, gasoline (select locations), general grocery, general merchandise, liquor (select locations), meat & poultry, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, wine |
| Parent | Loblaw Companies Ltd. |
| Website | http://www.shopnofrills.ca/ |
No frills is a chain of franchised "hard discount" grocery stores currently located in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Alberta, that are owned by Loblaw Companies Limited, a subsidiary of George Weston Limited. There are over 130 no frills stores in Ontario, and three in Alberta (in Olds, Wainwright and Vegreville).
The early no frills stores mostly sold only no frills' No Name products (probably the first supermarket to do this in Canada). The franchise was widely expanded in the 1990s by Loblaw Companies Limited, which also operates several other chains of supermarkets, including Loblaws.
The company operated a few stores in the Buffalo, New York, area in the United States, as well as in Gloversville, New York, but these closed after Loblaw Companies Limited's U.S. chain was sold in the mid-1970s.
In the beginning, No Name products were branded in yellow and black packaging (the product name in black letters on yellow), without any graphics or product photography to cut down product cost. This went against the prevailing assumptions of marketers about how to attract customers.
Loblaws had introduced the successful better-quality President's Choice products in the middle to late 1980s with higher quality graphic design on their packaging. It started redesigning the No Name products packaging right afterwards. No Name product packaging went from the bland look of the 1970s and early 1980s, to including abstract production illustrations in the 1990s, to (more recently) photos of the products as seen today, all the while maintaining the well branded yellow colour the brand is known for.
In the 1980s, regular national brands were introduced as part of the stores' offerings, and in the 1990s, the President's Choice line of products was introduced from Loblaws. There was originally little public association between no frills and Loblaws even though they were owned by the same company. George Weston Limited, which owned both companies, may have wanted to separate the markets. no frills was geared towards budget-conscious consumers, while Loblaws was geared towards more middle class and well-to-do consumers.
no frills gained a large share of the ethnic consumer market in the Toronto area for the grocery business when Knob Hill Farms went out of business. A huge part of Knob Hill Farms' customer base was ethnic consumers. Some no frills buildings were previously Knob Hill Farms locations. no frills also advertises on the multicultural television stations in the Toronto area as did Knob Hill Farms.
The Quebec equivalent of no frills is known as Maxi and it has about the same store size and colours.
In the late 1990s, A&P Canada introduced Food Basics, a discount grocery store imported from the A&P parent company that was started in New Jersey, to compete directly with no frills. Sobeys, another competitor of Loblaws, introduced Price Chopper stores to compete in the discount grocery market.
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