Massy Stores CEO Roxanne de Freitas says a lot of money and work has been invested into the supermarket chain's latest branch on the Eastern Main Road in San Juan, which was opened on Wednesday.

Speaking at the opening, de Freitas said she was optimistic the branch would develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the community it aims to serve and looks forward to their interactions with the public.

This Massy Stores branch replaces the Diskomart supermarket at the same location.

[caption id="attachment_964732" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Massy Stores CEO speaks at the opening of the company's newest branch on Eastern Main Road, San Juan. Photo by Sureash Cholai[/caption]

Diskomart is line of groceries under the Massy Stores brand which carries a more limited variety of goods at a lower price.

In her opening remarks, de Freitas said the decision to open a Massy Stores grocery came after consultation with shoppers who wanted a wider variety of goods to choose from.

She said shoppers also hoped to make use of Massy Stores' customer loyalty and rewards programme which is not available under the Diskomart line of groceries.

De Freitas noted that the cost of the transition to renovate the building and ensuring all aspects of the grocery were up to code cost roughly $50 million.

"One of our values at Massy Stores is growth and continuous improvement and the launch of Massy Stores San Juan is one way we believe we've been embracing this value.

"We launched Diskomart about two years ago and while we operated within the community, we gained a lot of knowledge from what our consumers needed, what they are looking for and we realised that we needed to bring to this community, a bit more by bringing the Massy Stores brand.

"We upgraded, retrofitted and brought it up to the standard and we are proud of that, of what we can today call Massy Stores. A lot of hard work took place in the last few months to convert this brand into our proud Massy Stores brand."

[caption id="attachment_964733" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The newly-opened Massy Stores, San Juan. Photo by Sureash Cholai[/caption]

De Freitas said in addition to grocery items there were also sections which carried gardening supplies and accessories for vehicles.

Speaking with reporters after the official opening, de Freitas said among the different upgrades, special consideration was given to adequate security.

"There are cameras and there is constant monitoring, we build a very close relationship with the protective services and we had their representation here, so that in the event we need something whether it's police, fire or health we can get a response quickly. We can get an ambulance here fast, we can get a police response here quickly.

"We have security guards patrolling, we have two entrances. If we look in the back at night and it's quiet in the back we won't open the back entrance, we'll close it at a certain time maybe at around 4 pm.

"We have to be vigilant, we have had to invest a lot of money on cameras, on mo