Next month, grocery shoppers in Limestone County will have a new supermarket to peruse with the opening of a new Save-a-Lot store on Jan. 20.

The store, to be located in the old Piggly Wiggly location at Athens Town Center on U.S. 72, will employ 20 to 25 part-time and full-time workers, according to Chon Tomlin, a Save-a-Lot spokesperson. The employees will all be hired from the Athens area.

“We work with employment agencies to get people from that area to staff the stores,” she said.

The square footage of the new Athens store will be about 19,406 square feet, about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet larger than the average Save-a-Lot store. Though Athens and Limestone County has several supermarkets, Tomlin said Save-a-Lot is less concerned with competition and more concerned with serving area residents.

“We want to provide for the needs of the community situated around our stores,” she said. “We’re considered an extreme discount or limited assortment store, so you can get everything you need for your family. We’re really more about providing for an immediate need.”

Hugh Ball, director of the Greater Limestone County Chamber of Commerce, said despite Save-a-Lot’s corporate model, competition is healthy for the businesses and the consumers.

“There’s certainly a niche for that kind of retail business,” he said. “We’re still growing in Limestone and we need to expand all our retail categories, and of course, we want everybody to be well fed.”

Tomlin said because Save-a-Lot keeps overhead low, it’s able to offer up to 40 percent in discounts to its customers. She said because of the way the stores are stocked, customers have a shorter shopping time, about 20 to 30 minutes from car door-to-car door.

“Most stores have ketchup, but we don’t have 30 different brands,” she said. “We don’t have a bakery or a floral department, so those things allow us to pass on the discounts. It’s all about savings and making things easier for our customers.”

Missouri-based Save-a-Lot, founded in the late 1970s, operates 1,200 stores in 39 states. Since the beginning of November, there have been three stores open in Alabama, including Birmingham, Talladega and Eufaula.

“Alabama has been a strong point for us because there has been a lot of need in different areas,” Tomlin said. “We opened a store in Montgomery that hadn’t had a store in a very long time. A lot of our customers also live within the immediate area of the store so they don’t have far to travel.”

According to Save-a-Lot’s website, the company’s mission is to “make a positive difference in our customer’s lives by saving them money and time through our nationwide network of licensed and corporately owned grocery stores.” The mission statement also emphasizes promotion of its “own exclusive brands” and providing a “positive shopping experience in stores that are clean, well-stocked, fresh and staffed by friendly, helpful and respectful associates.”

Ball said another benefit of having the store open in Athens is the fact that it will be occupying a space left open by the shuttering of the Piggly Wiggly store at Town Center.

“It’s certainly good that we’re getting that space filled. Certainly, we need to keep up existing facilities and keep commercial properties active,” he said. “We always encourage new business in the area. It comes as demand dictates.”