Peavey Mart, once the largest farm and ranch retailer in Canada, is preparing for a revival after shutting down operations earlier this year. Backed by a group of well-capitalized investors, the company will reopen select prairie locations in late fall 2025, beginning with stores in Spruce Grove, Westlock, Camrose, and Lacombe.
The new owners, operating under 2707162 Alberta Ltd., have acquired the rights to the Peavey Mart name and associated intellectual property from the now-defunct Peavey Industries LP. According to a statement, the relaunch will proceed without bank debt, an approach designed to ensure greater financial stability.
“We know that the closure of Peavey Mart stores left a gap for many customers,” said Doug Anderson, speaking on behalf of the new investors. “Our ownership group recognizes the importance of Peavey Mart in the Canadian retail landscape, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to relaunch the brand in these communities.”
Building a New Foundation
The investors have secured 40,000 square feet of distribution space in Red Deer, Alberta, which will serve as the operational hub for the relaunched chain. The group has also assembled a leadership team, with Kurt Schultz overseeing operations.
Schultz emphasized that the revived Peavey Mart will remain focused on its traditional core customers. “We’re bringing back the Peavey Mart that people know and love, a Peavey Mart focused on the needs of the farmer, rancher, and homesteader with a strong emphasis on providing value for dollars spent in our stores,” he said.
The new iteration of Peavey Mart will carry many of the familiar brands that defined its product mix, including DeWALT, Dickies, Scotts, Harvest Goodness, Rolling Acres, and Pit Boss. At the same time, the company has signaled a greater emphasis on high-quality, unique, and locally sourced items that align with the Canadian entrepreneurial spirit.
A Canadian Retailer with a Tumultuous Past
Peavey Mart’s return comes just months after the chain abruptly shuttered all of its more than 90 stores across the country. Based in Red Deer, Alberta, the retailer had long been a cornerstone for rural and small-town customers, offering agricultural equipment, hardware, workwear, and home improvement products.
The company’s history stretches back to 1967, when it was founded in Winnipeg as National Farmway Stores by the Minneapolis-based Peavey Company. After its rebranding as Peavey Mart in 1974, the business expanded across Western Canada. In 1984, following ConAgra’s acquisition of the Peavey Company, Canadian management acquired Peavey Mart outright, making it a wholly Canadian-owned retailer.
The company grew further after acquiring Ontario-based TSC Stores in 2016 and later expanding its presence in Manitoba. In 2020, Peavey Industries secured the Canadian master license for Ace Hardware, adding more than 100 locations to its retail portfolio.
From Expansion to Collapse
Despite its ambitious growth, Peavey Mart struggled in the years leading up to its closure. Early in 2025, the company began shutting down underperforming locations in Ontario and Nova Scotia. By spring, all stores nationwide were liquidated.
Industry analysts pointed to multiple challenges: declining consumer confidence, inflationary pressures, rising operating costs, supply chain disruptions, and increased competition from Canadian Tire and Home Depot. The retailer sought creditor protection as it faced mounting financial troubles, and by April 2025, every store had closed.
The collapse was particularly felt in rural communities, where Peavey Mart often served as a primary supplier for essential farm and ranch products. While many customers expressed dismay at the closures, some admitted to shopping less frequently, with liquidation events drawing more traffic than regular operations.
A Focused Path Forward
The new ownership group aims to avoid repeating the missteps of the past. Plans call for reopening a core group of 7 to 12 locations across Alberta and Saskatchewan, rather than attempting a broad national footprint. The goal, according to Schultz, is to create an agile culture where store teams and operations work closely together to respond to customer needs.
“Creating an agile business model is critical to our success,” Schultz said. “This will ensure we can pivot quickly to meet customer expectations and build a profitable operation that lasts.”
By scaling back to a manageable regional footprint and avoiding heavy debt, the investors hope to create a leaner, more sustainable version of the brand. Whether this new chapter succeeds will depend not only on financial discipline but also on winning back customers who once relied on the retailer as part of daily rural life.
Community Expectations
The relaunch signals an important test for Canadian retail in the prairies. As large chains continue to dominate, Peavey Mart’s comeback represents an effort to preserve a distinctly regional model that caters to farmers, ranchers, and homesteaders.
The company’s focus on locally sourced products also reflects a broader consumer trend toward supporting Canadian-made goods. By aligning itself with that movement, Peavey Mart may carve out a more resilient niche in a competitive market.
Still, the road ahead will be difficult. National chains retain a significant advantage in scale, pricing, and logistics. Peavey Mart’s survival may depend on its ability to maintain strong community ties while adapting to modern retail realities.
Are they even allowed to do this after thousands of their employees lost their jobs with no severance. Some with between 15 and 50 years working there. It’s sad for all of us who lost jobs there.
The job losses are so sad, I hope everyone is ok. This new Peavey mart appears to be under an entirely new ownership, using the same name.
NOPE !! Check your facts. Anderson and some buddies are involved.
Same owner, same name, just screwed 2000 employees out of their liveley hood.
Doug Anderson should never be allowed to be involved in this reopening of Peavey Mart. The amount of people and families he has ruined due to lack of control of his own company. He wasn’t paying enough attention to the money going out and now he expects people to want to work there, let alone shop there. They obviously are never coming to ontario but this definitely shouldn’t be allowed. Change the name, open a different store, not Peavey Mart. He has ruined the reputation of the store.
Anderson is a FRAUD. He lost all the money of employees who invested in his scam and now he is back. Why cant he just go away quietly?
I have loved the store over the years but was disappointed when they changed the name from TSC to Peavey. Who shops at a store called ‘Peavey’? I just personally found it difficult to take in. A wonderful country store called Peavey. The name sure did not play a positive roll in business. Let’s find a more fitting business name that pulls in the country consumer rather than him or her needing to tell their friends, ‘ I bought this at Peavey’. Hope your store comes to Ontario as well!
I loved TSC as well. Great prices and great farm equipment….peavy only had expensive non competitive prices. Amazon and princess auto was cheaper on everything…. bring back TSC …not sad peavy is gone.
If you dont reopen in Yorkton Sask. You’re stupid.
We loved our local TSC store. So disappointed that this mismanaged company took it over and then dragged it under.
FYI – TSC was in receivership and about to go bankrupt when Peavey purchased them.
No, it wasn’t.
None of the people who lost their jobs received severance or termination pay. Part of this should have been covered through the WEPP government program, which was designed to cover part of these losses for bankrupt / CCA-receivership companies. That money is supposed to come through 35 days after the company finalizes the bankruptcy/receivership filing, which for Peavey would have been mid-May. However, Peavey Industries has received at least two extensions. The latest extension takes it to December 10 … more than half a year after it would have been due. Clearly this revival is one reason why.
New ownership? Anderson owned Peavey before with Schultz in upper management, now they’re back. Struggled? During Covid Peavey celebrated becoming a half billion dollar company. With their competition having to shut down or cut back Peavey did not. Stupid, greedy
discisions to buy in to Ace Canada, purchase a bird seed company and trucking company led to the fall. Anderson should never be allowed this opportunity after screwing all his former employees, left without any severance or benefits.
YES GREED, I believe that was a large part of the failure BUT ALSO A LACK OF CONTROL The lack of control started at the top. I think that ACE hardware was bought with very little vision as to how to maintain the flow of inventory. ACE was allowed to dictate unmanageable procedures and they were given “royalty status” that everyone had to bow down to. Too much power and lack of control was given to their buyers. As an example, log splitters. In the buyers eyes, “we sold on average 15 in each store last year, we will be able to sell 25 in each this year.” That mentality often does work with consumables like bags of salt or a roll of chicken wire but not log splitters. If I bought a log spitter this year, I would defiantly plan on using for 8 to 10 years. There were very few procedures in place to either discount or write off stagnate inventory. Unrealistic goals for warehouse picking were set so that everyone was in a rush and more often than not mistakes and/or damage were caused. i think that there was a plan to reopen long before the closers were even started. Funny how the Red Deer warehouse and offices were available. I think that it was telling that the CFO “left” just before the goofy shit started happening. Again my thoughts, I think that most of the questionable moves were to “out perform” dear old Dad.
Be careful people DON’T get burned again.
100% true, full plan by Anderson and Schultz, these two pricks could not tie their shoes without someone’s help.
Don’t work there or shop there.
I certainly hope that we get our Peavey Mart back in Leduc.
Its’ good to see a wholly owned Canadian company coming back ! I have a small farm in Aylmer Ontario and if you make it as far as Ontario in reopening stores you can be sure I will support your company 100%
Thanks George
If you do, you will be supporting the exact same leadership as before (with a few different investors). This is the same leadership which:
1. ran the previous company into the ground through consistently poor management decisions (including previously-successful TSC Stores, which Peavey bought out);
2. made a tactical CCAA receivership to evade debts, including debts to employees;
3. caused 1900 employees to permanently lose their jobs without severance or termination (far worse than the current Stelco news);
4. bought back all the remaining assets and intellectual property for peanuts;
5. hired nearly all new employees at less than $18 per hour, with bare minimum increase in pay for supervisory positions. eg. customer service representatives will be paid $17.60 per hour, while the customer service supervisor will be paid 16 cents per hour more.
At the end of all this, Doug Anderson remains as Peavey’s chief executive, poor management decisions notwithstanding. *He* gained, at the expense of a very loyal workforce, many of whom had been working there 20, 30, even 50 years. Do you think he gave himself a raise?
I would have liked for them to choose another name in respect to all their employees who lost their jobs. Farm canada,fields and farms agri canada, I’m sure they could have come up with something viable and less hurtful.
Peavey employees who were terminated because of CCA receivership did not receive severance or termination pay. The government WEPP program is supposed to cover a part of those losses. Peavey’s WEPP submission deadline has been extended multiple times, and is currently December 10 … eight months after it was originally due.