Paul Sobey

David Sobey, a former chief executive and chair of the Sobeys Inc. grocery store chain, died in September 2023. He was 92 years old. In 1907, Nova Scotian J. W. Sobey started a meat-delivery business using a horse-drawn cart. A few years later his son, Frank, convinced him to expand from meat into a range of groceries, thus marking the beginning of the Sobeys retail chain. The company came to dominate the East Coast; its expansion since has been fuelled in part by acquisition. The 1998 purchase of the Oshawa Group tripled its size and turned Sobeys into a national player. The company spent $5.8 billion to purchase Canada Safeway, entrenching the grocery chain even deeper in Western Canada. Empire Co. Ltd., the parent company of Sobeys, says he helped grow the regional player built by his father into a national food retailing and distribution business. Sobey served as vice-chair and CEO of Sobeys from 1982 to 1986 and as chair and CEO from 1986 to 1995. He was chair from 1995 until 2001 when he retired and was appointed chair emeritus of Sobeys. Sobey retired from the Empire board of directors in 2015.