Toronto’s Longo Market buys online food retailer Grocery Gateway

One of Canada’s biggest web grocers has a new owner. In August, Longo Brothers Fruit Market Inc. announced plans to acquire Grocery Gateway Inc., a large Toronto-based online grocery store and delivery service.

Now the acquisition has been completed and Grocery Gateway will become the expanded e-commerce arm of Longo, a privately held grocery chain with a network of 14 stores across Toronto.

"Longo`s vision is to continue to enhance the customer experience in store and online," says Longo CEO Anthony Longo. "A key initiative in our strategic plan for 2004 was the expansion of our business by enabling customers to shop online directly with Longo.”

Terms of the acquisition weren’t announced, but Grocery Gateway generates about $30 million (U.S.) in annual sales and stocks about 10,000 total SKUs, says a company spokesman.

Longo, which had been one of Grocery Gateway’s chief suppliers, will use the acquisition to expand further into downtown Toronto where it only has one store and compete more efficiently against bigger chains.

With the acquisition of Grocery Gateway, Longo adds more than 100,000 customers to its online business base.