Small Grocers Doing Well Against Canadian Chains

This article, dated January 6th, is from the British Colombia edition of Business Edge, a Canadian business publication. It is written by George Froehlich.

Local grocery stores are finding niches markets in the B.C. scene, where behemoths like Wal-Mart, Costco and Real Canadian Superstores dominate the local food shopping landscape.

Because of concerns over fresh foods and improving personal health, many of these small marts and small chains are stocking organic foods and installing in-house take-outs and restaurants. They are always keeping tabs on the pulse of consumer tastes, which means they have to make themselves more attractive than the "big-box" stores. Often, many of the basics the "big-box" stores carry arre cheaper in the smaller stores, who often make their money on selling speciality items and organic produce.

This is good news in this highly competitive industry with yearly razor-thin profit margins. However, the small markets and small chains would do better if local, provincial and Canadian Federal laws were not written in a way to favor "big-box" stores and national chain-store conglomerates to begin with.

It would be better if both consumers, small store owners and legislators in Vancouver and Ottowa get to work and begin dismantling the structure supporting the chain-store monsters. Distributism can flourish in the grocery world, as well as the world at large.