Frewville Foodland, twice named as ‘world’s best supermarket’, will be demolished and rebuilt, says Chapley family

THE family-owned Adelaide supermarket that has twice taken out the title as “world’s best supermarket” is to be bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch.

Spero and Nick Chapley plan a demolish and rebuild of their hugely successful Frewville Foodland store. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

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AN Adelaide supermarket — twice crowned the world’s best — is to be bulldozed.

Nick Chapley, who runs the Frewville Foodland with son Spero, has revealed plans to flatten the building and rebuild it from scratch.

“We are talking about demolishing Frewville and starting again,” Mr Chapley said. “We never stop — all the time we are saying, ‘What can we do next?’”

The popular Glen Osmond Rd supermarket, which sometimes requires traffic controllers to manage the carpark, won back-to-back International IGA Retailer of the Year Excellence Awards in 2016 and last year.

The Chapleys, whose Commercial Retail group also owns Pasadena Foodland, say it is too early to say when the rebuild is likely to happen — or to share a vision for the new supermarket — only that the plan would likely include more carparking spaces.

Mr Chapley said the family would first develop a “Euro-style” supermarket on Charles St, West Lakes — employing 400 people — before starting on the new Frewville store.

“Last week, a young family from London said to me that our Pasadena store is something like (luxury London department store) Harrods only better and someone from Hong Kong told me something similar,” he said.

“So forget the international awards; customers will tell you what they think — they come here and they feel it, they get it.”

The Chapleys bought the Frewville property in 1989.

SPECIAL REPORT: Read more about the Adelaide grocers behind our retail revolution