A local grocery store has taken shopping into the 21st century.
Quality Market launched its online store Monday morning. For a $12.99 delivery charge, shoppers in the city limit can go online to fill their cart and have it brought right to their door. There is also an option to pick up the order for $6.
Shoppers pay the same price for food that they would if they went to a store and even have access to the same sales.
Co-owner David Stezenko said it will be a big help for people who are too busy to shop or have mobility issues. While online shopping isn’t new, online grocery stores are. Stezenko said only major cities like Toronto or Vancouver have the online option that Quality Market has brought to Thunder Bay.
“It hasn’t been embraced wholeheartedly by the grocery industry,” he said.
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The online store will also help people in the Far North, who generally have the most difficulty accessing fresh food.
For the past year, Quality Market has been a supplier for Nutrition North Canada, which offsets the cost of air freight for First Nations communities buying fresh and healthy food.
But Stezenko said sending people an 80-page electronic document wasn’t the most user-friendly way of letting people shop. Now people in remote First Nations communities can shop online to get their food.
“Breaking into the North is not something that happens overnight, you have to build a relationship with people and you have to build trust,” Stezenko said. “By offering this streamlining system and making it a lot easier it’s going to connect us with more folks it’s going to allow us more conversations and it’s going to allow us to accelerate the service to the North for sure.”
Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Stan Beardy agrees. With 34 of 49 NAN communities being air-only access, it can be hard for people to access fresh produce. Beardy said in his home community of Muskrat Dam, groceries are only flown in once a week.
“It’s impossible to have that,” Beardy said. “It’s a real challenge.”
And with some NAN communities have some of the highest per capita diabetes rates in the world, that fresh produce is critical. While the nutrition rebate is only available to communities North of 60 right now, Beardy is hopeful this online program will get more communities involved.
“I’m hoping that once we have this system fined tuned and up and running that we can continue to work with the federal government to make sure that there is a built in subsidy,” Beardy said.
Visit the online store here
