Ahold to open fresh format in Boston

Ahold USA, which quietly opened an urban fresh format recently in Philadelphia, is doing the same in Boston, SN has learned.

A division of Ahold known as Fresh Formats LLC is advertising for employees for a new small-format fresh food store to be located in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. Want ads appearing online describe the venture as “a new Fresh Food market that is small in size but BIG on fresh, organic & value.”

Ahold used similar language when it sought staff for Everything Fresh, the 3,000-square-foot organic specialty store that opened in December in Philadelphia.

That store was developed under a New Formats division founded last summer by Ahold and headed by EVP Bhavdeep Singh. That group also last summer acquired Eastside Marketplace, a successful small-store format operating in Providence, R.I., with the intention of learning from its operations and management.

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Suzi Robinson, a spokeswoman for Ahold’s Fresh Formats, told SN Thursday that “Fresh Formats LLC is developing a new grocery shopping experience that will be introduced later this year,” but declined to provide further detail.

Ads seeking employees around Boston this month were seeking department managers and assistant department managers with experience in catering.

Robinson added the company was “focused on learning” from its Everything Fresh format and had no comment on expansion plans. A report Thursday in the Philadelphia Business Journal, citing local real estate sources, said Ahold was planning as many as seven additional Everything Fresh stores in Philadelphia, with some as large as 20,000 square feet.