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TORONTO • Grocery giant Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is taking on Whole Foods in a test pilot of a new retail concept called Nutshell Live Life Well, a stand-alone franchise catering to the health-conscious crowd.

The first location will open this fall in downtown Toronto, Loblaw company spokeswoman Julija Hunter confirmed on Thursday, and will include a broad assortment of prepared, fresh and packaged foods, a prescription pharmacy, natural health and beauty products, vitamins and supplements.

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Loblaw’s news comes a month after the CEO of Austin, Tex-based supermarket chain Whole Foods Market Inc., the world’s largest natural food retailer with nine stores in B.C. and Ontario, said it could open 40 or more Canadian locations as part of a bigger worldwide expansion.

And Nutshell Live Life Well will make its debut in the midst of perhaps the most competitive year to date in Canadian grocery retail, in which all of the major players have seen their margins squeezed in a pricing war and the rapid expansion of grocery square footage from Walmart and Target.