Special Edition - Update From The Board

November 5, 2024

Welcome to this special edition of the Steep Hill Newsletter. Here, your Steep Hill Board of Directors would like to update you on how your co-op is doing as we enter our 46th year in business.

The Board is guided first and foremost by Steep Hill’s purpose as stated in our articles of incorporation:

To purchase and distribute goods and services on behalf of its members and patrons on a non-profit, cooperative basis.
To work toward providing high quality food and information about nutritious food.
To encourage the development of ecological lifestyle using appropriate technology and the local production of food.
To work to develop and sustain a cooperative spirit in the community.

We also work to ensure Steep Hill is putting the 7 International Co-operative Principles into action: Voluntary and Open Membership, Democratic Member Control, Member Economic Participation, Autonomy and Independence, Education, Training, and Information, Cooperation among Cooperatives, and Concern for Community. See back-issues of our Newsletter for more information about these principles and how Steep Hill applies them.

At our last AGM (Annual General Meeting), the in-coming Board shared a vision statement for the future of Steep Hill, and it continues to guide decision-making. This vision aims to have Steep Hill become a stronger element in Saskatoon’s and Saskatchewan’s alternative food system; expand our customer base and membership; get more members more involved with the co-op; bring people in through many viewpoints and educate our members; use funds raised to reduce operational costs, table at events, have in-store and social media promotions to build community, and to have fun and celebrate. Putting this vision into action is a work in progress of course!

This year, getting the basics in place and building a foundation for more ambitious plans has been the priority. We are pleased to see our membership numbers and sales revenues grow. We are holding our own financially, but still working towards long-term sustainability. Furthermore, we need to become stronger so that we can invest in more improvements and be in a better position to deal with the unexpected. One of the best ways you can help make this happen is by including Steep Hill in your weekly shopping, and encouraging people you know to try us. In the new year, the Board is planning to undertake a more formal strategic planning process which will help us clarify priorities and steps to achieve them. There will be opportunities for you to provide input, so please stay tuned!

Fun Fact: Membership Growth - We have experienced a significant increase in membership over the last year at Steep Hill Co-op, with 410 new members since August 2023. This has more than doubled our total membership, which is now around 700 members. We’re also happy to report that our co-op is also seeing strong renewal rates from these new members.

Store Operations

Amielle Christopherson, Store Manager shares the following report:

It’s been about a year and a half since Steep Hill was very close to shutting down, and what a year and a half it has been! There have been a lot of changes (products, staff, hours, procedures, the list goes on!), but I know the Board and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the patience, understanding, and support you’ve shown through all these transitions.

When I first started at Steep Hill, I had a few ideas about what I wanted to accomplish and get done in my first year, and I’ve managed to cross some of them off my list, but others continue to be works in progress, requiring a few more steps or facing a few more hurdles than I’d initially expected. And I know there have been some moments of frustration on behalf of our very dedicated membership, but I am so grateful that everyone has continued to stick by us as we continue to leap those hurdles and scale those mountains!

As we head into the tail end of this year, I must say I’m really pleased with all the local suppliers we have in store and all the produce we made available during the summer. I’m feeling more confident around ordering and planning out ordering schedules and including suggestions from our membership. I’m very proud of the consistency and quality of customer service we offer.

Our new point of sale system (POS) has been a great tool (albeit with a few quirks we’ve had to navigate!). It tracks what we sell daily, weekly and monthly, and is very useful when it comes to ordering. We’ve been able to minimize our waste, order in accordance with selling patterns, and helps ensure we’re purchasing as effectively as possible.

Fun Fact: Top Selling Products - Would it surprise you to know that organic lemons are the #1 best-selling item, with over 2,000 units sold? Bananas are also a top seller, with over 2,000 kgs sold in the last year! Selling out quickly whenever ordered, perhaps the most unexpected hot item is eucalyptus candy! All sizes of Sunrise local eggs are also top sellers, as are cucumbers from Floating Gardens. In fact, all our Floating Gardens products are very popular. Local products account for 6 out of our top 20 selling items!

Member Services

As a small (but mighty) neighbourhood grocery co-op, Steep Hill offers our member customers services that help it punch above its weight: special orders, delivery, and new product sourcing.

Special Orders: Many of our members/customers rely on special order items that the co-op doesn’t regularly stock. While we ask that members order a minimum quantity in a special order, it’s also worth noting that the price of a bulk order will be discounted compared to the price of buying just a single unit. The minimum order quantity is typically half a case, but it may be more or less, depending on whether it is something that can also be sold in store in a timely way. The co-op will also do special orders for even larger quantities, such as 10 pounds of turmeric for a local restaurant or cases of apples for a local bakery. We will be announcing the schedule of ordering so that our members can use this service more easily and frequently.
Delivery Service: Steep Hill offers delivery Tuesday through Saturday, for a $5 fee. Typically, if you place your order by the early afternoon, it will be delivered the same day between 3-6 pm. Our delivery is a personal service in the best sense of that phrase—staff can consult on what’s in the store as you make your order and will contact you if they have questions about quality or substitutions. Steep Hill accepts payment via cash, e-transfer, or credit card over the phone.
Sourcing New products: We count on members expressing their needs and wants for new products and helping us locate new sources. Members can suggest that Steep Hill contact particular suppliers or carry specific products not already sold in-store. You may have noticed a blackboard in the store, where you can find information about product sales or co-op announcements. You can also use the whiteboard to write down requests for new products. Furthermore, you can also fill in our Product Survey to let us know what you would like to buy at Steep Hill. We’ll look into it and the co-op will try to source those items if possible.

A Little Extra Corner Store

You may have noticed products on Steep Hill’s shelves that wouldn’t have been found in earlier years. As you know, organic—and even local—products are often more expensive than their conventional counterparts. There are often good reasons for this. For example, organic production may be lower yield per acre, or take more time and/or labour than conventional production due to its commitment to using regenerative or sustainable practices; it may also include a commitment to higher returns to producers, or costs of storage and distribution might be higher because of its smaller market base. Once Extra Foods closed, Steep Hill’s board realized that the neighbourhood would be left without a general grocery store and, in particular, nowhere to buy daily staples—especially for low income or strapped-for-cash consumers without the money to buy groceries that were all organic.

After some debate, the board decided Steep Hill should provide the neighbourhood with “a little extra” corner store, a way to buy the basics without needing to go outside the area by car or public transportation, even if some of those basics are produced “conventionally”. We believe expanding our offerings helps us fulfill the Co-operative Principle of “concern for community.” However, given that another Co-operative Principle is “co-operation among co-operatives,” we also decided that our conventional offerings should be co-operative brands or sourced from co-operatives whenever possible. Although not universally celebrated, we’re hearing from many members that they appreciate Steep Hill’s new approach, and we think it has helped enlarge our membership. Given limited food budgets, having a mix of products allows people to choose which products are their priority to purchase as organic and then also buy the rest of their groceries at Steep Hill. Perhaps counter intuitively, we’re even understanding that some folks are finding it makes sense to buy organic or local when they come in for conventional products when they might not have before.

Steep Hill’s Top Notch Staff

By Amielle Christopherson

I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve hired several employees over the last few months. We’ve introduced them all in a recent newsletter and I hope you’ve all taken the opportunity to start getting to know our three new staff members: Brooklyn, Stephan, and Sol.

No new job is easy, and working in customer/food service can be especially daunting – from learning about hundreds of items and where they all go, dealing with over a dozen local suppliers, figuring out how the point of sale system works, remembering all the operating procedures and all the steps for special ordering – the list goes on. Our new staff have really embraced learning everything that comes with working at Steep Hill, including the over four decades of history and cooperative spirit. I know there are still things I’m learning about, and I’ve been here a year, so I sincerely appreciate the patience from all our customers and members as our new staff continue to learn about all the things that make Steep Hill what it is, so they can answer all the dozens of questions they deal with every day.

To point out some great work being done in store, I’d like to give a brief thanks to each employee, highlighting some of the specific things they contribute:

Sammy is in charge of our social media posting on our stories on Instagram and Facebook. He does a great job of taking lovely photos, noting the price and making them attractive and eye-catching. He’s wonderful at connecting with our customers and very eager to problem-solve if there’s ever an issue.

With his university course load this year, Scott has had a reduced schedule in store, but has been our steadfast Sunday employee, taking care to go through produce and reset the store for the new week ahead. He’s very willing to answer any and all my questions around ordering, suppliers, and any troubleshooting needed!

If you’ve ever admired the artwork on our signs in front of the store, you have Brooklyn to thank! She drew a delightful turkey for Thanksgiving and has kept our signs looking very eye-catching. She’s been great at getting to know our regulars, is cheery, and meticulous when it comes to going through produce!

Have you noticed how neat and organized our storage and shelves are? That would be thanks to Stephan, who is incredibly diligent about going through all the storage shelves, getting items onto the shelves, tidying the space, ensuring everything’s organized. He’s eager to learn how to do everything he can in store, and always has several creative suggestions for any problem.

Sol is the newest member to our team and is very warm and welcoming with all our customers. He’s always ready to ask if a customer requires any assistance, give a helping hand whenever needed, and stops to have a bit of a chat with members as they’re checking out. Sol’s very diligent about making sure things are done properly and his attention to detail is greatly appreciated!

Bringing You More Local Foods

Steep Hill emphasizes sourcing local and seasonal products and has worked hard to develop working relations with local growers and suppliers to broaden our local offerings. These are some of our newer local partnerships:

Casita Foods Many Saskatoonians were disappointed when Leyda’s closed, because it was their source of delicious, high quality gluten-free bread. Now, you can find fresh gluten-free bread and buns, delivered Tuesday-Saturday by Leyda’s Miguel de Lucas Sintes. Their hummus is also VERY popular in our co-op. Casita Foods is committed to making organic/vegetarian/vegan food as much as possible.

The Makers’ Way Foraging Brian Giesbrecht offers Steep Hill wild and foraged food by bringing fiddleheads and garlic scapes in the spring and a variety of hard-to-find but delectable mushrooms as they come into season during the rest of the year. This year Steep Hill was able to offer Saskatchewan chanterelles, oyster, lobster, cauliflower, and maitake mushrooms. Brian sells more mushrooms through Steep Hill than any other single spot.

Blue Sky Berries Jarvis Blushke’s Blue Sky Berries farm in Langham provided Steep Hill with Saskatoon berries last summer. In two weeks, we sold 50 pints! Once again, Steep Hill had an appetite for local produce and ended up being the best wholesaler outlet for Blue Sky’s Saskatoon berries this year. They will be bringing their berries back next year, as well as sour cherries.

Derksen Family Farm The Derksens are multi-generational, organic farmers near Rosthern. Derksen’s apples have proven to be a hit with Steep Hill consumers, who bought over 100 kg in the first 6 weeks we carried them.

Simpkins Market Garden Dixon Simpkins through family-owned Simpkins Market Garden offers Steep Hill a variety of vegetables grown pesticide and herbicide-free, whose taste cannot be beat. This past summer, for example, we were able to offer carrots, potatoes, onions, peas, green and yellow beans, and a deep green-purple asparagus that is perhaps the most delicious available anywhere. Steep Hill members agreed, and purchased over 100 pounds during Spring. The quality of this asparagus is so good, we’ve decided to only offer asparagus seasonally, when it can be eaten at its peak flavour.

Fun Facts: Local Products - Locally produced seasonal items top the charts when they’re available. Our members love their local veg! For example, we sold 88 kg. of zucchini, 175 units of kale, 46.3 kg of local asparagus and 121 bags of garden peas during their seasonal windows this summer. We’ve sold over 110 kg. of local Derksen apples so far this fall.

Working Members’ Contributions

Working members make important contributions to what we do here at Steep Hill by looking after tasks that otherwise might not be possible or would require additional staff time. There is a calendar up at the front of the store where members can sign up for shifts. That calendar is also included in every monthly newsletter, so you can call the store or send an email to sign up for shifts. In recognition of these contributions, working members are eligible for a further discount in the month following their work shift.

What a shift involves depends on what’s going on in the store. Some days volunteers bag products (nuts, dried fruit, spices, etc.), sometimes they wipe down the shelves. If the weather’s nice, they might distribute flyers for the store within the Nutana area and surrounding neighbourhoods.

We also have “out of store” volunteer opportunities. These include picking up cardboard, compost, or garbage for disposal, help with snow removal during the winter, and tidying up behind the store (weeding, trimming the tree, etc.). We’d also like to have a list of handy persons who might be able to help with tasks around the store (light plumbing, electrical, general fixing/maintenance, etc.).

Please talk to Amielle if you’re interested in any of these roles, to let her know of other ways you could contribute, or if you have any questions about working member matters. You can also fill in the Participating in Steep Hill survey to let us know the kinds of skills, experience and interests you’d like to contribute as a working member. We’ll keep the responses on file, and may call you to help with a project or initiative that seems like a good fit.

Fun Fact: Busy Days - Steep Hill Co-op is often bustling nowadays, and it just keeps getting busier. Our best day so far this year was Friday, October 11, and our second-best was Saturday, October 12. This was, of course, right before Thanksgiving when we sold 40 fresh, local turkeys.

The Newsletter is an important way to share information with members and shoppers. We’re glad you’re reading this one! Each Newsletter is planned, written and produced by a small committee of Steep Hill members who meet monthly, and in return are provided with the Working Member discount. The newsletter provides information for you to learn more about the products we carry – and why they are on our shelves, recipes to highlight creative and nutritious ways to use our ingredients; education about co-operatives, fair trade, local and organics; store news, working member opportunities, and announcements and other kinds of information that help us build community and encourage members like you to participate in making Steep Hill thrive. Past issues of the Newsletter are posted on our website. If you would like to join the Newsletter Committee, send a message to board@steephillfood.ca.

Fun Fact: Local Partnerships - Steep Hill has been working to develop strong partnerships with local suppliers to offer more local products over a wider seasonal window. These local products, including wild-foraged mushrooms, apples, lettuce and microgreens, garden veg, gluten-free bread, and more, are very popular with customers and sell out quickly. We look forward to broadening our offerings and partnering with more local producers. Our membership in the Broadway Business Improvement District (BID) and the Stand are also import partnerships in the community.

Updating Our Bylaws

One of the Board’s goals for this year is to assess our bylaws in a holistic way, and consider whether updating them would benefit the co-op. We asked Co-operatives First, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping co-ops, to look over our bylaws and identify any weaknesses that should be corrected. Our review showed we could improve our governance by addressing some gaps, such as qualifications and term limits for directors, clarifying processes regarding board vacancies, term limits for officers, clarifying the definition of joint memberships and updating limits and procedures related to borrowing, expense reimbursement and signing authorities. The bylaw amendment proposal will be included in the AGM notice, giving members time to review it before voting.

Interested in Joining Steep Hill’s Board?

The Board of Steep Hill is responsible for ensuring both the store and our co-operative are viable and sustainable, vibrant, and thriving. Steep Hill’s bylaws allow up to twelve directors to manage Steep Hill Coop on behalf of its members. At our last AGM, 10 directors were elected. Since then, some vacancies have occurred. If you are interested in joining the board now, or letting your name stand for election at the AGM (likely in January), please email the board at board@steephillfood.ca and include your phone number. We will get in touch with you to provide more information about the role and its responsibilities and answer any questions you might have.

We Want to Hear From You!

One of Steep Hill’s great strengths is the open lines of communication. Both the Board and our Manager are always open to hearing your feedback, suggestions, or requests.

Our “How did we do today” suggestion box and cards at the front of the store is where you can easily write comments. Please include your contact info if you would like someone to get back to you. There is a white board by the front door where you can add to the list of products people would like to see in store (we’ve been able to bring in about 80% of those suggestions in the last few weeks).

Talk to Amielle if your issue is about an error at the till, placing a special order, questions about when a product may be back in stock, or any questions about volunteering. She is open to having a discussion in the store, but please be mindful of how busy the store is, and what other duties she may have to look after. If you have an operational or broader concern about Steep Hill, please send a message to the Board at board@steephillfood.ca. One of the Board members will respond. Your input may alert us to needs we were not aware of, and help us to develop better policies to improve our co-op.

Thanks for being part of Steep Hill’s success!

Sincerely,

Your Steep Hill Board members Cathy Holtslander, JoAnn Jaffe, Gary Wilson and Louise Ranger

News