CALGARY — Calgary’s grocery store wars are heating up with a new chapter in the battle beginning Saturday as Save-On-Foods enters the city’s fiercely-competitive marketplace.

In short time, the B.C.-based grocery chain will have three stores in Calgary — the first opening Saturday in Seton, followed by Panorama next Friday, and Walden on November 8. A fourth store on Heritage Drive and Macleod Trail is slated for 2014.

“The challenge always is to get the right locations in the right areas,” said Darrell Jones, president of the Overwaitea Food Group, parent company of Save-On-Foods, who was in Calgary Friday to prepare for Saturday’s opening of the 42,600-square-foot store in Seton. “We’d like to have at least a dozen stores or more in the Calgary marketplace. The important thing is to find the right locations and to make sure that we have the offer that the folks in Calgary are after. Nobody wants just another grocery store. You want a place you’ll be able to come to and it’s going to deliver what the folks in Calgary want. And I think we’ve done that here.

“Clearly, Calgary’s one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, if not the fastest. It’s a very alive and dynamic city and we feel that we’re a good match for Calgary.”

Save-On-Foods, which is part of the Overwaitea Food Group owned by the Jim Pattison Group, now has 26 stores in Alberta with the opening of the Seton location. The 98-year-old company has operated in Alberta since 1990 with its first store in Edmonton. It has 102 stores in Alberta and British Columbia.

“One of the things we got ourselves in doing in the Overwaitea Food Group, particularly Save-On-Foods, is to make sure that we build our stores and design our stores specifically for the marketplace,” said Jones. “For example, here in Calgary we have a Smoke and Flame Barbecue ... We even have cowboy sushi which is sushi that’s got beef in it.”

Jones said the three stores have hired 430 new employees and about 75 people are also coming to the stores mainly from Edmonton and some from Vancouver.

“The grocery store industry is really competitive right now,” said Ben Brunnen, a Calgary economic consultant. “Both Target and Walmart have ramped up their grocery offerings of late, and Sobeys bought out Safeway earlier in the year.

“The decision for Save-On-Foods to expand into Calgary is a good thing for our city. Calgarians will now have more choice of where to buy their groceries, and this competition should help lower prices and increase service quality.”

Rob Walker, senior vice-president and partner with Colliers International in Calgary, who specializes in the retail segment, said the grocery market in Calgary is highly-competitive and profitable.

“Calgary is a very important market in Canada for all retailers, and especially grocery — we all need to eat. Calgary has the highest disposable income levels in Canada, and grocery retailers will want a piece of that,” he said. “In addition, Calgary is growing rapidly and these new markets — whether that is suburban or urban markets — will need basic services, which includes grocery.