Local suppliers taking stock amid L’Oca closure

Both L'Oca stores in the Edmonton area are now closed, one day earlier than advertised. The closure is impacting some local producers. Nicole Weisberg reports.

The closure of a high-end Edmonton-based market has put things into perspective for some local suppliers.

“We can take the hit when something like what happened (with) L’Oca unfortunately happens. It’s definitely a bit of a setback, but we’re going to be able to bounce back,” said Riccardo Baldini, founder and owner of Strathcona Microgreens.

Baldini’s organic produce company was supplying to L’Oca Quality Markets before the grocery store announced it would be closing its two Edmonton-area locations in March.

“As a general client base that we have, it’s a very sustainable and resilient business … we have 100 plus medium-sized clients,” Baldini continued.

Strathcona Microgreens can be found in a number of recognizable local venues – the Italian Centre and Community Natural Foods, to name a couple – and Baldini says his company’s strength is in being able to deliver hyper-local ingredients straight from his vertical farm on Whyte Avenue.

“It’s unmatchable, especially in the winter. If you get stuff from grocery (stores) in the middle of January, most of the time it comes from afar,” he added.

Despite the cost-of-living crisis, Baldini says the appeal of fresh food and especially fresh greens in an Edmonton winter is marketable. So he was surprised, he said, to find out L’Oca had decided to shut down.

“Never had an issue with them since the day we started … Always been very kind to me and kind to our operation, how we work, and have been very consistent in their orders and payments.”

Mary Bailey has been writing about the Edmonton food scene for 30 years in The Tomato, a food and drink magazine about options for those looking to shop local. She said the city has made strides in the local, organic and fresh-food markets in the last 10 years.

“Your only options (10 years ago) really were the farmers’ markets. But now we have all the farmers’ markets … and there are other grocery stores that do a fair amount of local, community natural foods.”

Local, to her, can include vital greens, dairy or meat from places like Red Deer or Leduc.

“Alberta does some things really well. We do meat, we do poultry … We do great dairy. We don’t do good fruit,” she added.

She also noted that the rise of internet marketing and direct sales models have allowed for both local suppliers and stores that stock local to stay trending.

To stay robust, however, there is a checklist of requirements.

“You have to be good at what you do. You have to be good at your business … You have to be a good, experienced operator, and you have to understand your market,” Bailey said.

In a statement to CTV News Edmonton last week, L’Oca said the business was “humbled by the difficulty of executing a locally focused, hand-crafted business model.”

Although originally set to close on Thursday, the market closed its doors a day early after selling the last of its stock at a discount.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg