An ambitious Michael Kim has taken over the vacant Palmer's store in Shedden, ON and is renovating it into a vibrant new County Market.

Since Palmer's closed, Shedden has been without a grocery store for two years. Michael worked as a franchisee at Canada Bread for six years and has both some grocery store and convenience store experience gained in St. Thomas.

"This community needed a grocery store pretty bad," Mike said and he decided to go for it. "We opened on the Rosy Rhubarb festival. We weren't ready but we opened it anyway. We didn't want to miss the chance to let people know about us."

Now called the Country Market, the first thing you notice when you walk in the door is how much Mike has opened up the interior space with the renovations. With gleaming new floors, it is bright and cheery even though not all of the lighting has yet been installed.

Already the store stocks a wide variety of competitively priced items including dairy products, drinks, breads, snack foods, cereals, cleaning products, tinned goods, baking supplies, pastas, sauces, spices, and pet foods. As freezers and coolers get added the dairy products line will expand, frozen foods will be added and an entire meat department. The store will also feature a full produce section.

Open 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, Mike is creating "a store like Foodland and we will be sending flyers out every week." Hours may be shortened a bit during the winter months, "but people no longer have to drive to St. Thomas or London or Port Stanley to get a bag of milk, or a hamburger or something."

Though renovations are not yet complete, "People here in Shedden, Iona, Fingal and Frome are very excited and happy that this store has arrived here," Mike explained. "Because of this we've also created jobs," he smiled with justifiable pride, noting as well that a realtor told him he'd recently sold two homes in Shedden because there was now a grocery store in town.