Ardent business owners Sanjiwan and Savita Sadhir of Bulkley Valley Food's say the community feedback they have been receiving that inspired the expansion of their new cooler.
"People have been asking for fresh meat and produce. It's inconvenient for people to travel to Smithers or Burns Lake just for the basic stuff. We know that right now that we can't provide everything, but we are trying our best right now to expand," said Savita.
With the closure of Supervalu, local business owners like the Sadhirs, that are invested into the well being of the community, are raising the bar for shopping local. By providing the essentials at their store, these entrepreneurs are creating a space for community networking and support.
"Most of my costumers have been happy with what we are doing. They think that it's great. Especially with the produce case, now they have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to choose from. It's quite positive," said Sanjiwan.
"After they [Supervalu] closed down, we realized that we couldn't offer fresh meat and produce from our small cooler that we had. And whatever produce, whatever we were putting in, we couldn't keep it as fresh because it was an open cooler. So I figured, well, we have to do something different," explained Sanjiwan.
The new cooler is approximately 20 feet by eight feet. It is still a work in progress. Additional shelving is being added to store for the rest of the produce and to make room for fresh meat in the other cooler.
Fresh meat products are expected to be available within the next 10 days.
"Now it's basically just trying to get the deliveries scheduled, and figuring out how we are going to do it. But I am hoping in less than 10 days," said Sanjiwan.
"If we are offering fresh meat, fresh produce--a wide variety of groceries--then hopefully a lot of the people that do go out [of town to buy their groceries] will decide that they don't have to go every week now, that they can go every two," Sanjiwan jovially said.
Stop and shop at BV foods to share your feedback, and show your support to these community business owners that are taking the unfortunate closure of Supervalu, and saying, we can make something good out of this.