With the recent threat of tariff wars, patriotism has been at an all time high in Canada. Primarily because, we don’t like being threatened to become a 51st state of America! Since the tariff wars haven’t been completely cancelled out, it’s still important now to support local and buy locally made products. I will try to make a separate post for product swaps from American to Canadian but first I wanted to highlight the smaller grocery stores. There’s another reason for this: the corruption mediatized in recent years that led to the Loblaw’s boycott. I’ll be honest, when the Loblaw’s boycott was at it’s height I wasn’t jumping onboard straight away, while I agreed with the ludicrous price inflation on products, I was at a loss of where else to shop. Loblaws makes up a large majority of grocery stores in Canada, and next to that, I couldn’t see Walmart or Sobeys being much better. Let me make it clear, I don’t have a lot of money for groceries, and farmers market prices are usually pretty steep. While I love a good market, they’re quite overstimulating, with a niche selection of products, and I can’t always justify the prices. I will try hunting for new markets soon, but first let’s take a look at the grocery stores in Edmonton.
First stop: Lucky Supermarket (formally known as Lucky 97). This is a locally owned independent grocery chain that started in Edmonton in 1994 in Chinatown, and has expanded to other cities in Canada. I started with this store as it has a newer location southside on Calgary Trail that I hadn’t checked out yet. The location in Chinatown has scared me off previously because the parking lot is always full and hard to navigate and it’s quite far from where I live. So I was excited to find out about this new location, and yes, they have a much bigger parking lot.
I was blown away by the size of this store, definitely comparable to a Walmart. The store has 2 floors and while I didn’t go upstairs I was surprised to find they have lots of plants on sale up there. On further research Botaniful appears to be a separate business with a varied selection of plants and crystals, definitely something to check out next time. But as you can see, from the pictures above and below, they have a large produce and bakery section with a wide range of products and reasonable prices. I don’t often shop with list (not good, I know), so I wasn’t sure how much I would come away from here with. But as it happened, I ended up getting a full grocery shop and spending well over an hour in here!
If you like fresh fish and meat, they have huge counters for both of those as well as a huge selection of frozen items. They also have a nice selection of home/kitchen items, where I found some new chopsticks, and they have lovely bowls too. I went on a Wednesday in the early afternoon and it was a pleasant experience, the aisles were easy to navigate, and there was no overcrowding. This made the checkout experience a breeze also, I could be in and out without any waiting around.
Something else in here to check out is a large food court, I didn’t take pictures as it’s situated slightly separate from the rest of the store. But it looked like they have a nice selection, I plan on taking my family here for a meal. If you have been to H-Mart (American company) the food court offerings/style are similar to that, except the seating area seemed larger and better lit. Below, I’ve posted a photo of what I picked up from the store that day and the total cost of all of the items ($140), which included good prices on eggs and meat.
Now I can understand if you’re specifically looking for how to change the products you buy from American to Canadian this might not seem as helpful. This store specializes in importing food, primarily from Asian countries (China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, India & more), so at least you know your chances of buying American are pretty slim. They do stock Canadian products and brand such as the Compliments brand, it’s just less likely you’ll find a deal on those items. That being said I did pick up some Canadian items such as: pasta, granola bars, and the “little potato co”, so it is still possible to support Canadian when shopping at smaller grocery stores.
I plan to go to several more smaller grocery stores in the Edmonton area, so let me know if there’s any you want me to check out. Then once I’ve visited and reviewed a few I can create a more comprehensive list with side by side comparisons of them. Hopefully this will feel helpful to those of us who don’t know where to start because we already have a lot going on in our lives.
Location: 2950 Calgary Trail NW
open from 9 am to 9 pm
Have you visited Lucky Supermarket? Share your favorite finds in the comments below!