A banner can be spotted hanging from the front of Buy-Low Foods in Port Alberni, declaring it Store of the Year.
The award came from the Pattison Food Group, which operates nearly 300 food and drug retail locations across Western Canada and the Yukon Territory. Each year, at their annual Leadership Excellence Awards, the Pattison Food Group recognizes "outstanding" leaders within its organization.
For 2024, Buy-Low Foods Port Alberni store manager Brook Weightman was named the Small Format Store Leader of the Year. This means that Buy-Low Foods Port Alberni is the Small Format Store of the Year.
Staff and customers at Buy-Low Foods held a celebration on Wednesday, March 12, complete with cake and samples from the deli department. Several team members from Pattison Food Group's Langley office were also on hand to present Weightman and his staff with a trophy for the achievement.
Jamie Nelson, president of Pattison Food Group, told the crowd that he toured the Port Alberni store about a year ago.
"The best part of my job is I get to tour a lot of grocery stores," he said. "Sometimes you walk into stores and, it sounds a little cliché, but you can feel something right away. You could feel that the people that were working here enjoyed working here."
The annual Leadership Excellence Awards are given to people who create a positive environment for their teams, deliver outstanding customer service and achieve profitable growth, explained Dereck Hein, vice president of operations for Buy-Low Foods.
This is the first year that a Buy-Low Foods store has been given the award since the formation of the Pattison Food Group back in 2021, Hein added.
Weightman gave full credit to the rest of the staff at his store for the award.
"This is a team any manager would love to have," he said.
