In late 2019, the only true grocery store in Okanagan Falls -- an IGA in a strip mall on the main drag -- closed its doors. Forever.
The reaction was not unexpected. Folks bitterly complained, the local RDOS director issued a sympathetic statement, and the media went wild with No Grocery Store stories.
But was the importance of the departure over-exaggerated? For one, and as PentictonNow reported last year, there were plenty of other noteworthy things wrong with the OK Falls downtown aside from an evaporating IGA.
A long-closed hotel, a gas station that didn’t pump gas, scant few eateries, empty storefronts, mysterious fires, unkempt landscaping and empty sidewalks up and down the main drag -- and that's just a start.
But the IGA was an easy target, so it got much of the notoriety. And the press.
But was losing it such a big deal?
After all, it wasn't exactly crazy busy, particularly toward the end of its run when pricing complaints were commonplace and the parking lot was mostly empty. Many OK Falls residents were already eschewing the shop local mantra to make the 15-minute trip to Penticton or even Oliver, where bigger stores with more buying power and lower prices awaited.
So for them, the loss of the IGA likely meant little.
Still, it did mean more to some. Like the employees. And the elderly and the infirm, and those with modest incomes or no vehicle. Sure they could grab a few items at one of three convenience stores in town, but real groceries, healthy groceries, produce and meat weren’t so easy to source.
This was the scenario Dahlia and Derek Millington walked into in 2020. The Edmonton couple visited OK Falls in July while touring through the Okanagan for a permanent change of scenery.
And when they got word from the locals, and the media, that the town was without a grocery store, they figured they'd found their calling. Both had experience in the industry, and the idea of feeding a town really hit home.
By October, the Millingtons were in OK Falls to stay. And they'd ultimately be the very first to respond to the apparent needs of a town stricken by a food shortage when in June of 2021 they opened a store called Little Falls Foods.
Granted, it was far from your average grocery operation. It sat on a side street, in the old post office building, rather than on the main drag. It was strictly vegetarian. And it adopted a "warehouse-delivery" model where patrons ordered remotely then waited a couple hours for items to appear at their door.
And now, four months later, Little Falls Foods, which captured almost as many headlines when it was announced as IGA did when it left town, is on the verge of closing.
"I'm not sure if it’s the model, or if there's some resistance or what it is, but we're not getting the kind of support that's needed to sustain a grocery store," said Dahlia Millington last week.
"A grocery store sustains on slim margins, and what we don't have is the number of people shopping. We've had something like eight people spend more than $700 in total since we opened. We have maybe 20 to 25 households doing their regular shops with us. It's really not sustainable."
According to Millington, the Little Falls Foods business model was based on an RDOS "grocery market survey" and an "OK Falls community survey."
In the former, said Millington, "People said they purchased between $250 and $1500 per month, with the average spending about $700 a month. We took that and said worst case scenario we'll get 15% of people's business, and then we cut that in half. But we haven't even come anywhere near that."
In the latter, "People indicated the lack of a grocery store was the number one problem in this area by more than 50%.
"So we took all that we saw and tried our best to make the solution a reality. And we staffed according to predictions. But now we're needing to cut back on staff and hours. We can't hang on more than a couple months beyond that if things don’t change."
We asked Millington if they'd ever considered the failure of IGA a warning sign.
It had, after all, offered a more familiar shopping model, a larger inventory, and meat. Yet it died anyway.
IGA blamed "declining customer counts." The locals claimed prices were too high. And the end result was the same.
"We probably didn't pay enough attention to the warning signs," admitted Millington. "The banks, the lenders, even the leasing agents at the mall (the Millingtons initially tried to set up in the defunct IGA) said OK Falls wouldn't get behind this project because they've proven they don’t support grocery stores.
"The guys from IGA said the same thing. That people were treating it like a convenience store.
"But toward the end, IGA didn’t focus on local. So we thought okay, we will focus on local. And we’ve done that. We've built so many relationships locally."
What about Little Falls Foods' eccentricities -- stuff like its warehouse-delivery model and meatless menu? Could they be the problem?
Millington argued that warehouse-delivery is the future of the grocery biz and a boon to those who can't easily get out. And going meatless, she added, was a personal and forward-thinking choice aided immeasurably when they fully realized the added regulations and cost.
Or, perhaps local shoppers want the impossible -- a store just down the street in a community with a population of a few thousand that somehow competes in both price and selection with the giant Penticton megamarts. And if they can’t have that, they'll continue driving out of town for everything but odds and ends.
But there's something else that’s undoubtedly beginning to take a bite out of potential Little Falls Foods revenues, while at the same time benefitting local shoppers. Namely, all the other smaller-scale options that have suddenly sprung up.
While none of them offer anywhere near the selection of a real grocery store, they do have one key factor on their side. Groceries are just a part of their business.
Will they suffer mightily if locals continue driving to Penticton for their main grocery run? No. They're all quite happy to serve when needed. And in a spot with OK Falls' unique attributes, that counts for a lot.
Like the Esso at 10th and Main. This summer, owner Sarbjit Aujla expanded the convenience store portion of his setup by 800 square feet. Just so he could stock more groceries.
Now, the space has several sizable aisles of popular grocery items, plus a row of freezers in the back where customers can buy stuff like ice cream, frozen vegetables and most critically, frozen meat (frozen burgers, frozen chicken breasts, and more) and ready-made meat-inclusive dishes.
The majority of it carries the M&M Food Market label, though you'll also find names like Pinty's and Delisio.
There's a half-dozen varieties of bread and a very small fresh fruit and vegetable section too that'll apparently grow once a veggie cooler finally arrives, likely in November. Fresh meat though will be a far tougher proposition, again due to regulations and equipment and supply cost.
"We were planning to expand for awhile," said store rep Pamal Aujla. "We saw the need from the community, and they'd supported us so well over the years. And as we were working on it, we heard about Little Falls Foods."
"We're happy. Definitely there are more people coming in now to buy the things they need."
And that's not the only spot in town where you'll find the M&M name. Another is the local Pharmasave, where a small bank of standup freezers has been installed near the front entrance.
"What we’re trying to do is help the communities that are remote," said Curtis Warren of OK Falls' Pharmasave ownership group Neighbourly Pharmacy. "And this is called an M&M Express -- basically M&M's top brands condensed into eight feet. We just put one in Keremeos as well."
Warren said prices aren’t at a premium over regular M&M stores, and that the lineup will change seasonally. "So as it becomes summer it'll flip to more burgers, and as it becomes Christmas it'll flip to more hors d'oeuvres."
Pharmasave won't handle dairy or bread, Warren added, but it is planning a Staples Express in the near future.
Meanwhile over at the Centex gas station across the street, where the brand new owner has just repaired and activated the facility's long dormant fuel pumps, more changes are afoot.
Over the course of the next few months, we're told, the station will bring in ready-to-go food like chicken, pizza, samosas, sandwiches and salads, and then extend its grocery menu beyond the convenience store fare currently on tap.
By next summer, the half-empty interior space will be filled with cabinets and shelves that will house an improved selection of non-perishables and limited produce, frozen meat, and bread.
As for the old IGA building, where speculation on new tenants has been rife ever since it was vacated, there is, yet again, no official news on anything.
"Until something's signed, it's all just talk," said Lorne Dennis of property manager Locke Property Management.
Back at Little Falls Foods, Dahlia Millington is keenly aware of the new competition and that much of it has accelerated since the opening of her store. She's even more aware of the 50 grand currently sitting in inventory and all the work -- and money -- it took to turn a beat-up old post office into a modern business.
"But they're coming here just to buy bread and milk," she laments.
There is, however, a last-minute fall-back plan that might help stem the bleeding. It hinges on specialty products that generally can’t be found anywhere near OK Falls and it's based on experience -- much of the current Little Falls Foods menu is comprised of specialty goods.
"We’re going to start selling off some of the stuff where people expect us to compete on price," said Millington, "and we're bringing in even more specialty items.
"We have a big shipment that's just come in from Italy with Christmas items. And we'll go even more into imports, more vegetarian, more vegan, more gluten-free, more keto."
"But if things don’t pick up," she adds, "we're definitely done."
