Okanagan Falls has notoriously been without a true grocery store since the September of 2019 closing of its IGA. Ever since, residents have been forced to make do by picking up whatever they can at the corner store or one of two gas station convenience stores, or trekking to Penticton or Oliver.
But last Monday, Little Falls Foods officially arrived on the scene to ease the burden.
The product of new arrivals Dahlia and Derek Millington, Little Falls Foods is unique in that it operates via a warehouse-delivery model. Customers place an order via its website or phone (or in person) and the store fulfills it and delivers it to them -- free of charge on orders over $50 if they're within seven kilometers.
According to Dahlia Millington, the reception thus far has been "about what we can handle to start with."
"Some people are curious and others have jumped right in, but every day we've had more orders coming in and higher revenues. It'll eventually need to be much higher to be sustainable, but this is just week one."
Millington said she expects it'll take some time not only for the community to realize the facility exists, but to fully understand its modus operandi.
"People can look at the website, see what we've got, and make their selections in the privacy of their own home, which is kinda cool because they can go around to their cupboards as they're doing it to see what they really need.
"They can pay online or pay on delivery with a handheld device the driver will have, or they can opt to pick it up and pay when they get here.
"It's old fashioned and new fashioned together."
Millington claims there are other advantages too, like customized sorting.
"You can type in 'organic' or 'vegan' on the website and it’ll bring up only those items. You can choose by brand, by region if it's an import, you can sort by price and you can filter by price category. For example, you can choose to see only items between $5 and $10."
With some products, the website will even let you sort by ingredients. It'll also track your order history, which makes it easy to reorder or simply check when you most recently bought a given item.
Delivery, at the moment, is generally within a two-hour window, though Millington expects that to lengthen to a four-hour window once they get a little busier. But it'll never be longer than that except for orders placed after 2 pm. They'd be delivered the next morning.
As for inventory, Millington said it's "building."
"We have a range of products, but not a big range of sizes so far. But that will be coming, bigger sizes especially. We've spent $30,000 on inventory so far."
That inventory does not include meat or anything with meat in it, because Little Falls Foods is strictly vegetarian. That means they carry stuff like milk, eggs, and cheese, but no bacon to go along with it.
When PenticontNow toured the facility last weekend, we found a solid selection of standard groceries, including produce, and a lot of imported and specialty items too. Gluten-free is strong at the store, as are vegan offerings.
Between the warehouse area and the trio of containers the Millingtons have brought in for easily stored products like pet foods, hardware (screws, bolts nuts, glue, irrigation equipment, etc) and personal care items like face creams and feminine products, there's still plenty of shelf space for more.
"We've had a terrific response so far from people who are already excited to have a store that focuses on vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and organic food," said Millington. "Those things are very important to us.
"We do have conventional brands like Western Family, Heinz and Kraft, but I think it's the imported Italian foods and Chinese foods and other specialties as well as the high integrity of the organic, gluten-free and natural brands we're bringing in."
While touring, Millington showed us some baking chocolate. Then some flour. In both cases, there were a variety of choices based on price, quality, and origin. We figured that sort of selection was quite impressive given that Little Falls Foods is a fraction of the size of the defunct IGA.
The facility currently employs eight people, seven of which live in OK Falls. One of those people is Dahlia's 25-year-old son Malachite, the guy who put together the software that drives the innovative business model. Justifiably, he's a bit of a star at the new venture.
Little Falls Foods, at 5129 10 Ave, just a block off the downtown strip, is currently open from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm seven days a week. We're told those hours will expand as business picks up.
For more information and to check out the Little Falls Foods rather slick website yourself, go here.
