As grocery store chain Loblaw Cos. Ltd. looks to carve out much of its property portfolio into a real estate investment trust, Canada’s original grocery REIT has given investors a taste of the strong returns that can be had.

Crombie REIT, which went public in 2006, is the landlord for Sobeys stores. Crombie has steadily been executing a strategy not unlike the one Loblaw has laid out for its proposed REIT – buying Sobeys stores from the parent grocery store chain as the company develops them, and supplementing that with purchases of properties with no connection to Sobeys to add a little diversity and scale.