By Deb Smith
Today, more than ever, Canadians are looking to organic foods to help them achieve better mind and body health and a wellness lifestyle that will improve not only their own lives but also their communities and the world as a whole.
In a StatsCan poll, the majority of Canadians gave their reasons for choosing organic as firstly for health benefits followed by making a difference in the environment by the use of fewer chemicals and sustainability.
Over the past five years, organic retail sales in Canada have increased 57 per cent to the tune of $5 billion a year and rising.
Blush Lane Organic Market is one grocery retailer that has been helping meet this demand through its four retail stores and a farmer’s market outlet in Alberta. Offering an extensive variety of organic, natural and gourmet foods along with healthy living products, Blush Lane features local, farm-direct, organic produce, dairy products and meat. It’s this commitment to Canadian certified organic farmers that is the underlying strength of this successful retailer.
Going Back to the Basics
Rob Horricks, CEO at Blush Lane Organic Market started at the bottom, working in a Safeway store when he was 16 where he learned about the organic food market and saw its potential in the Canadian grocery industry. Following through, in Calgary in 1998, he started his first company, Organic Express, delivering food orders across the city. “It was the first organic home delivery company in Alberta, and the first order I took was by fax!”
But that was only the beginning for this entrepreneur. In 2006 he sold Organic Express to Vancouver-based SPUD.ca (Sustainable Produce Home Delivery), and he and his wife, Zenya, purchased a 10-acre orchard in Keremeos in the lush farming area of southern British Columbia. Neither of them had grown fruit before, but the surrounding organic farming community offered support and advice all along the way.
“We already had a booth at the Calgary Farmer’s Market where we had been bringing in local organic produce and it was very successful,” says Horricks. “But then a change of location for the market was proposed, and we decided we wanted to move into our own place. So in Calgary we set up our first brick and mortar store in Aspen Woods – Blush Lane Organic Market in 2008. We came up with the ‘blush’ as it reflects the perfect ripeness of a peach when it’s ready to be picked, representing our focus on high quality. ‘Lane’ is a sort of country-sounding word that would connect people back to where their food comes from. Although I hadn’t set up a store before, I come from a grocery background, so we jumped in and just did it.”
In fact, they did it three more times with an outlet in Edmonton in 2012 and three years ago opened another two in Calgary – one in Bridgeland and another in Marda Loop along with a booth at the newly located Calgary Farmers Market.
When Design Meets Purpose
The stores are all designed specifically to fit into a smaller footprint, generally below 10,000 square feet. “This gives a cozier feel to the store,” Horricks explains. “It’s not as much of a commitment for people to come in and browse. Outside the pandemic we would often have people shopping on a daily basis or maybe every couple of days. Coming into our stores is nice and quick for them; they don’t have to walk through an 80,000 square foot store to find what they want. It makes for a more personal experience, and our staff get to know the customers.”
A unique colour scheme sets these stores apart. The main colour is a bright blush, referencing again the store name, while shelving is painted a pure stark black in contrast to the colours of the produce. Horricks notes that the stores are purposely over-lit with warm lighting to further make the products stand out and be noticed for their colour and freshness.
Horricks adds, “We really focus on freshness, so produce is huge for us, and we take a lot of pride in the positive feedback we receive. People mostly are coming for our fresh products. We try to do ‘just in time’ inventory as much as possible and get a really good turnover on our products. Because we’re small, we literally have next to no back rooms in our stores. Everything comes in, sells and more comes in tomorrow. We can compete when it comes to dairy and deli items as they are still unique and fresh. Centre-of-store items are more of a challenge as big box stores can enter into that segment without worrying too much about loss.”
Local and Organic All the Way
Supporting local growers first to ensure quality and freshness, the stores offer a global selection of organic fruits and vegetables, and whenever possible organic, farm-direct, local meat and eggs. When organic is not available, they move to grass-fed or free-range. And if that doesn’t work, they will look to support small, local farms. This is not only as part of a commitment to provide the best for their customers, but is also to actively promote sustainable, ethical and environmentally conscious agricultural practices.
Customers can choose from locally produced organic milks, yogurts and cheeses as well as other Canadian organic and artisan cheeses. Locally and organically produced natural and gourmet foods line the shelves. Seafood is third-party certified sustainable, preferably from the west coast of Canada and wild-caught if possible.
Blush Lane also provides a variety of clean natural alternatives for everyday use in health and body products. To further encourage their customers to use these sustainable products, the Blush Wellness Club offers discounts on eligible purchases, while the Market Points Reward Program delivers discounts towards all purchases or a cash donation to each store’s designated charity that is matched by Blush Lane.
Bringing Core Values into Everyday Practice
In every way possible, Blush Lane Organic Markets are working to fulfill the four core values that are the foundation of the business: Love, Integrity, Fresh(ness) and Ecology. All words that are often tossed about casually, but at these stores, they are translated into real decisions and actions – like the LED lights used in the dairy cooler to save energy from constant opening or choosing 100 percent green electricity with Bullfrog Power, Canada’s leading green energy provider.
Before the current COVID protocols, the stores added scales near the bulk food sections for a fill-your-own-container program, which was very successful with customers. The Blush Lane takeback program is aimed at “Be Fresh” pink bag products, stand-up plastic pouches that are not normally recyclable. Through Blush Lane’s partnership with a specialized recycling company, the bags are now turned into new useful products.
“We’re always looking for opportunities,” says Horricks. “We really leverage technology, like the auto-replenishment system that knows what we’ve sold and automatically orders more in. We try to be as progressive as we can because if we’re not in front, we’re behind.”
Moving Forward
Three years ago, Horricks sold the Blush Lane Organic Market to SPUD.ca but has remained onboard as the CEO. “Everything that has been on everyone’s mind is how to solve home delivery, and we had to find a way to provide this service. I knew the challenges of home delivery from my experiences with Express Organic and just wasn’t prepared to go through the whole setup procedure from scratch. With SPUD.ca it’s a great partnership of like-minded people who will be able to go farther together. Right now a lot of what we’re doing is integrating online technology with the brick and mortar technology, and SPUD.ca is going public in January 2021. It’s a very diverse business, and we have a lot on the technology side to provide services to other companies.”
The Horricks still have their organic orchard in B.C. specializing in tree-ripened peaches so good that people remember eating them as an experience. “A lot of the farmers we worked with back when we got started are still with us today and they have expanded along the way as well. One of the things I’m most happy about is that we’ve been able to create some changes in our food system when it comes to organic. There are more organic products out there now, which is what we set out to do.”
Horricks attributes the success of the Blush Lane Organic Market to always looking to those four core values that started it all. “People, the planet Earth and profit are all equally important for long term success. We can’t get people going in the same direction if they all don’t have the same purpose. I’ve learned that using the most hands-off management system empowers people and allows them to manage through using those principles. Staff turnover costs a lot more money than I think we realize. People who aren’t aligned don’t want to go to work, but at Blush Lane, we are fortunate in that we have passionate and committed team members.”
Organic farming technology is getting better all the time with better equipment, better understanding of what needs to be done. And supply is improving, but not at the same pace as demand. Blush Lane Organic Markets have established a strong customer base through meeting those demands. As major players continue to move over to organic there will no doubt be big jumps in supply. But as Canadians look for ways to achieve a healthy and ethical lifestyle, the demand for organic products will also continue to grow.
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