page_title: Maxi (Canadian supermarket)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Maxi (Canadian supermarket) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Logo of Maxi
context_page_description: Maxi is a discount grocery retailer based in Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1984 by Provigo, it is a division of Loblaw Companies and the largest of Loblaws' Quebec supermarket chains. Maxi is the Quebec equivalent of No Frills, a chain of franchised discount grocery stores outside Quebec, except that Maxi stores are owned by the company. Over 7,000 people are employed at the Maxi and Maxi & Cie stores across Quebec.
context_section_description: The first Maxi store opened November 15, 1984 in a former Kmart location at the corner of Chambly Road and Jacques-Cartier Boulevard in Longueuil. It was Provigo's answer to the rising success of Super Carnaval which had just opened a branch in the same city two months earlier. Maxi was intended to be a spinoff larger version of Héritage and was sometimes referred to as Maxi-Héritage or Héritage-Maxi in its early years.
  By 1987, Maxi had grown up to a chain of seven locations with stores in Longueuil, Châteauguay, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Saint-Leonard, Lasalle, Pointe-Claire and Trois-Rivières-Ouest. Today, the original Longueuil store operates as a Maxi & Cie hypermarket. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s, Maxi used a cartoonish elephant as the mascot of its flyers, in a move similar to that of its sister chain Héritage which used a kangaroo.          
  Of the 22 locations that parent company Provigo acquired from Steinberg in 1992, half of them went to Maxi alone, while the other half was split between the Héritage and Provigo banners. In 1993, several Provigo stores (especially the larger ones) were rebranded as Maxi locations. Maxi absorbed the Héritage chain in 1995 to reach a total of 67 locations. 
  Maxi became a division of Loblaws following the latter's acquisition of Provigo in 1999. Maxi briefly used to have stores in Ontario, but they were converted to No Frills after Loblaws purchased Provigo. There were 90 Maxi stores and 23 Maxi & Cie in 2017 within the province of Quebec.
caption: Maxi's second logo from about 1994 to 2004
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