| rev:text
| - Many years later, still pretty mediocre overall.
They focus on bringing in local and organic produce, which is great, but the prices are pretty crazy. $8 for a handful of Brussel sprouts is a bit much.
It gets really busy in here and the produce aisles get blocked pretty quickly with people double parking carts. Very stressful unless you go when it's dead.
They've implemented a mediocre points program since my last review, which is a slight improvement from no program, but it's almost insulting how terrible it is. Every time I go in I spend between $70 to $130 on groceries, and I've still only seen one or two $10 rewards since the program has been implemented. You earn 1 pt. per $0.01 spent and you get $10 off when you've reached 200,000 points. Maybe my math is off but it seems like you get $10 when you spend $2,000. You can earn more points if you bring your own bag but if you bring, let's say 4 bags, the cashiers will choose the biggest bags you brought and stuff them to the brim, squishing all your groceries in there, just so they can avoid giving you the extra points for an extra 1-2 bags. This has happened the last few times I've come here, so it seems like they may have gotten stingier recently. A reward from them is pretty unattainable. Basically a household of 1-2 people can buy groceries there for a year and only see $10-20 in rewards that year. It doesn't seem like a very good program.
Their beets are a sloppy mess sometimes, covered in mud, and you start flinging mud around when you're going through them. I had to roll up my sleeves and I still got mud all the way up to my elbows. Come on, guys, if you're charging that much for produce at least wash the mud off. Yes, I know it's organic, but come on, we aren't all hippies who like to eat dirt for its probiotics or because it's a rich source of selenium... You sell other stuff for that...
Some employees also forget to input the $2 deposit when you return milk bottles, and they need to be reminded. Seems shady.
Their prices keep going up. Fred's Bread is like $7 for a loaf of the olive bread, and the potato buns are now $2. That's quite an increase from the previous pricing, which I thought was already pretty steep. Their body care section is very expensive but they have a pretty good selection, but it seems insane that they charge upwards of $15 for deodorant. Maybe that's what it costs but the natural stuff is generally quite gross and ineffective, so the ones that actually work are closer to $20. They are usually less on Well.ca.
Sometimes you'll get a good deal on produce, but sometimes it'll be crazy expensive. It's unpredictable.
They sell containers for making your own body care products here, so that's pretty great.
They have bulk nut butters. Their macadamia nuts used to be the best I could find in Toronto but now they're just rancid like everywhere else. I guess I have to go to Australia to get good macadamia nuts because now there is officially nowhere that has fresh macadamia nuts.
They have paid parking, which is better than no parking, but not as good as free parking. Whole Foods gives you free underground parking.
Even with all my criticisms I still shop here. It's the farmers markets first and foremost, and then a tie between the Big Carrot, Loblaws, and Whole Foods if I can't get to the market (or if it's winter).
I think there's a lot of room for improvement. They have a lot of potential to be amazing. I think they should improve their points program so that customers can feel like they're going to get a reward at some point. It would be great if they didn't squish all the food into as few bags as possible to avoid giving away points. I think if another big player came in that offered organic food that seemed as independent as these guys do then they would definitely need to step up their game to not fall behind. They're pretty lucky being the only large independent organic grocery store in Toronto. There are a few small ones in Kensington (Essence of Life, Tutty Fruity) but they're even more cramped and have way less options, but their prices are definitely cheaper. If I'm wrong and they aren't the only large independent organic grocery store in Toronto, someone please educate me so that I know that I have other options!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)