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News Updates
July 17th 2024
AltGrocery started as part-time weekend project to help those looking for alternative grocers, it has now grown into a passion. A crowdsourced platform promoting independent grocers, food producers, and farmers' markets across Canada, dedicated to enhancing food security and sustainability.
AltGrocery will not only provide information on where to shop in Canada for alternative grocers. But I am looking at features to track pricing so you can find alternatives that match your budget. I am also interested in providing much needed tips & tutorials on how you can grow your own food, and celebrate businesses who are offering sustainable solutions.
Changes to the site: I am releasing a new category "Breweries, Distilleries, Cideries, & Wineries", in order to promote alcohol producers in Canada. We will not be promoting grocers who sell alchohol, or bottle stores in this category the purpose is to highlight those who are creating the products.
Pharmacies category will be removed, it was added at one point but there has been little to no interest. And the sub-category for Convenience Stores will be removed, when we think about groceries there needs to be some nutritional value aside from chips & candy.
So we will be releasing a requirement sheet that will go with recommendations in the coming months. The recommended store must meet some of the nutritional requirements namely offer some sort of fresh foods ie: produce, dairy, eggs, meat etc., and the business needs to have at least 50% of their business dedicated to groceries to avoid stores/restaurants that just have one shelf of groceries.
We want to offer owners of these business the opportunity to claim their listing, in order to maintain their own profile. But with claiming their listing they will unlock more features, from being able to be rated, and offer deals.
May 10th 2024
I've been forced to remove the map for the rest of the month as a result of the high traffic and cost of map views. Website is still functional without it, you can still filter listings as you did before. We are planning to launch the new website in mid June which will use Open Street maps, and a much needed mobile mapping view. Thank you for understanding.
May 6th 2024
Happy Monday! General house keeping after deleted all the Giant Tigers, Bulk Barns, and Northwest owned stores last week there were a lot of empty cities. I've now deleted those cities till we get new recommendations.
Brought "Ask Question" back to allow mobile users to contact easier. Troll comments will be deleted on the spot.
May 4th 2024
The "Ask Question" option has been removed from the chat window, as I get more trolls putting down the website than helping. If you take the time to read the FAQs, there is no way that I can verify if a business that has been anonymously recommended is cheaper or more expensive. As a result, I will not remove based on a businesses pricing alone. Just don't shop there.
Additionally, the removal of the large brands is in solidarity to the Reddit group #Loblawsisoutofcontrol, I am not a mod, nor is this a mod created project. This is completely a third-party project, boycotting is your individual choice and this website is just for spotlighting alternative grocers. Negative feedback will not get a business removed based on your personal opinion, please provide evidence.
May 3rd 2024
Thank you all for your incredible support—whether through donations or sharing with your communities. Your enthusiasm has me considering leaving my day job to focus on this project full-time. I believe in its importance and its potential to make a significant impact. Together, let's continue to grow and enhance this experience.
The traction to the website has been unfathomable in just 3 weeks time, never did I expect this much interest. For those waiting on their listings for this past week. First, thank you for your patience. It's hard handling support, emails, and trying to still focus at the task at hand. I will be releasing about 700 listings today.
I am introducing a new feature in the next coming days that would include a checkmark on a listing to show that the listing is "Owner Claimed or Approved" this will confirm to people that information is correct, and allow me to connect with owners of these businesses when new features are available exclusive to owners who've claimed their listing.
May 2nd 2024
Bulk Barn & Giant Tiger chains have been removed from the website -- in hopes to stop the emails regarding them.
We are introducing paid advertising on the website as another way to combat the costs of running this website, traffic has almost crashed the site a few times. Ad space will be available on either the homepage, and (by province) on the map page.
Added Info
If you've filled out the form and own an "online only grocery business" without a street address to your brick & mortar store, you will not see your listing on the website at this time. I have to find some time to make a separate directory for your listings.
Please note because the listings are free, you are only allowed to have one. I review each and every listing added if you are adding multiple in hopes to be under multiple sub-categories. Duplicates are deleted automatically no questions asked.
Your listing can be deleted at anytime, this platform is to help independent grocers, butchers, bakeries, farmer's and farmer's markets be spotlighted, the top brand grocers with large marketing budgets will not be listed. Additionally if I find that your listing is incorrect, false information, or non-existent it will be deleted swiftly once flagged.
The "Notes" section when creating a listing is more for notes to me, any information re: about the business or stores hours is not included in your listing. But if there is enough interest I've been contemplating introducing premium listings to allow you have an entire page for your business that would allow the additional information this will be **only available for businesses that are claimed by owner**.
Known Bugs
Some pins may not display correctly or at all on the map due to the volume of users. If you've used Google Maps there's a reason why they load 20 pins at a time before you have to go to the next page. Once I get a chance I'll do my best to fix this but keep in mind this version of the website is our MVP. We're already planning improvements for the next version: increased robustness, faster listing updates, and mobile map support.
