Stop & Shop opens new store in Pembroke

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC said it celebrated the Friday grand opening of a new store in Pembroke, one that uses a smaller format than many of the chain’s superstores.

Pembroke, in fact, is where Stop & Shop debuted its superstore format in the early 1980s, according to the company. Superstores generally range in size from 55,000 to 65,000 square feet.

The new Pembroke store, at 24 Mattakeesett St., occupies 45,000 square feet and is located several miles away from Stop & Shop’s existing superstore in Pembroke.

It’s widely held industry belief that few consumers will venture more than a mile out their way to buy groceries. And the new smaller format is designed to provide customers with as much convenience as possible, the company said.

The smaller format Stop & Shop debuted about a year ago, and one was recently opened in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, the company said.

The new Pembroke store not only offers full-service meat, seafood, natural and organic departments, but it has been designed to accommodate the chain’s “SCAN IT!” shopping tools, the chain said in a press release.

Customers can use a special scanner device available in the store, or down-load a special app to their smartphones that enables them to scan and tally items while they shop. The program is also set up to give the customers “personalized savings,” Stop & Shop said.

Grand opening festivities included a Thursday appearance by former Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield.

Quincy-based Stop & Shop operates more than 400 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey. In New England, it had a net gain of three stores in its New England footprint in 2011.