Welcoming Fareway

For the first time in 26 years, a new grocery store is serving the community of Colfax. Fareway opened its newest and most compact location in the city at 28 E. Howard St. with a ribbon-cutting event March 17.

“We’re always looking for great communities to grow and be a part of and we saw an opportunity here,” Fareway President and CEO Reynolds W. Cramer said. “We were fortunate enough that we had worked with Jim Shugar before in Adel and so when he gave us a call to have a discussion it was an easy ‘yes.’ From there, seeing how this community is growing with the school system growing and new homes are going to be coming, it was an easy ‘yes’ to join up.”

From there, he said it just came down to the building and how to work with the size and find the variety of products that would make it a complete store. After about three months of work, Shugar’s had transformed to Fareway and was ready to open.

“When we put it all together I think we came up with a really awesome store for the community,” Cramer said.

The 8,000 square foot space holds everything from produce and grocery to a full meat counter. Citizens of Colfax and the surrounding communities will be able to get just about anything they need while in town.

“One of the companies most compact packages, it reaffirms the company’s ideals and commitment to rural Iowa,” Colfax City Administrator Wade Wagoner said. “This pilot project, if successful, will be an avenue to bringing high-quality groceries, meat and produce, as well as Fareway’s unmatched personalized service, to other small-town communities in Iowa.”

The new store idea caught the attention of the Iowa Economic Development Authority who recognized the “uniqueness and thought so much of this pilot project and the promise it holds for rural Iowa, that they partnered on the economic development package to make the store a reality” Wagoner said. Cramer added Fareway feels like it can be a part of the governor’s initiative for rural Iowa moving forward.

“There are quite a few smaller, rural towns in Iowa that are looking for a store and this gives us a great chance to show, hey, we can make it happen if we have that community support, so I think you are going to see more smaller footprints out in Iowa with Fareway in the future,” Cramer said.

While welcoming Fareway to Colfax, it was also a final opportunity to say thank you and good-bye to the Shugar family who has served the community for more than two decades. Without his work, the transition might not have been possible.

“Thank you to Jim Shugar and his wife for taking care of us for 26 years on this corner, building up a business that was good enough for somebody to want to be a part of it. A very big thank to him for making this all possible,” Colfax Mayor David Mast said. “We want to thank Fareway for their investment and welcome them as a partner in our future as we move forward.”

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com