Plymouth Market Basket staffs up for opening

PLYMOUTH — The newest Market Basket supermarket will open on Tenney Mountain Highway before the end of spring, assuming everything goes according to plan.

That’s what David McLean, operations manager for the Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based supermarket chain said on Monday.

The Plymouth store was announced in late 2018, with original projections for the store to open by the end of 2019. But, McLean said, the usual hiccups and unforeseen site challenges pushed the opening back by a few months.

“We’re just ecstatic, spring is just around the corner, I think everyone is excited,” McLean said.

He said all of the exterior construction was completed before cold weather arrived, so workers have been able to focus on the interior during the winter.

“This store will have everything that a new Market Basket store offers,” said McLean. In addition to the usual groceries, the Plymouth store will include an in-store bakery, fresh seafood case, full-service butcher shop, as well as prepared dishes that can be brought home and finished in the oven, and ready-to-eat meals such as sushi and pizza, all made from scratch in the store. A Market Kitchen Cafe will provide a place to eat those foods on site.

The store will also have a generator, allowing it to continue business as usual even if the power goes out.

Market Basket traces its roots back more than a century, but McLean said the supermarket company has sought to stay current with changing customer needs and interests.

“Look at the specialty cheese case that we have – more than 300 different cheeses from around the world,” he said. The store’s selections will reflect the contemporary shopper’s more worldly palates, as well as shoppers who want, or need, gluten-free groceries.

“There are 50,000 items to choose from in a supermarket, and I’m sure our Plymouth store will be the same. We see the trend to healthy food offerings, we also see a lot of consumers that have dietary concerns,” McLean said. “Everyone is looking for something, we want to be the one stop where they can find it.”

At 69,000 square feet, the Plymouth store will be 6,000 square feet larger than the Tilton Market Basket, which opened 16 years ago. The new location is expected to draw customers from the immediate Plymouth area as well as from along the I-93 corridor as far north as Littleton.

The Plymouth Market Basket will be on the same site of a new state liquor store on Tenney Mountain Highway. It will also be located in between two other competitors, Wal-Mart and Hannaford.

“Competition is really good for everybody,” McLean said.

While work went on inside the store this winter, a trailer was set up in the parking lot to welcome prospective employees. McLean said the store will seek to hire as many as 300 employees, including a mix of people on a full-time career track, as well as part-timers. He said they’ve filled about 70 to 80% of the positions for the new store.

“Our turnout is really good, we’ve had some fine folks coming out to apply for us,” he said.

One of the new employees is Bernadette Hutchinson, who was hired as a cashier. She’s never worked in a grocery store before, she said, but has worked in retail. Hutchinson, who will train in the Tilton store until the Plymouth location opens, said she recently relocated from Florida to Rumney and needed to find work. It was the reputation of the company that drew her to Market Basket, she said.

“When I dropped off my application, it seemed like the employees of the company had been there a long time, and were happy. It seemed like a friendly environment.”

As Market Basket has been building the Plymouth store, it has also been building new locations in Westbrook, Maine, as well as Lowell and Maynard, Massachusetts. Once all are open, there will be 84 Market Baskets, all in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire. The Plymouth location will be its northernmost store.