A NEW supermarket chain is set to open in Carterton.
Haldanes Stores, a supermarket company launched two months ago, plans to open at the Somerfield site in Alvescot Road.
It brings to an end months of uncertainty for the 35 Somerfield staff since the Co-operative Group bought the supermarket chain last March.
Haldanes chairman Arthur Harris said: “All 35 jobs are being guaranteed.”
Businessman Harry Watts, 59, managing director of The Robert and Doris Watts Healthcare in Carterton, said: “It adds variety to it all and I think variety is the spice of life. People need to have choice, it will be a redesign and it will still work.
“The more shops, the merrier.”
Lincolnshire-based Haldanes has just 18 stores across England and Scotland.
The acquisition came about after the Co-operative Group agreed with the Office of Fair Trading to offload 133 outlets, in centres where it already had stores, following its takeover of Somerfield.
The Carterton supermarket will reopen as Haldanes in March or April.
Haldanes has pledged to source more than a third of its food and drink from local producers and suppliers.
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