Customers say closing Good Food Junction a blow
Low-income community faces new struggles to access healthy food
When Sylvia Biron heard Station 20 West’s Good Food Junction would be closing at the end of the month, she knew life for her family and her neighbours was going to get tougher.
Standing on the front porch of her house in Saskatoon, she said she will have to travel to No Frills or Giant Tiger to get groceries and the additional travel costs and distance will present challenges.
“It’s going to be hard if we ever need milk, or anything,” she said. “We’re going to have to go out of our way to buy it.”
Biron said she and her family were regular customers at the Good Food Junction, buying vegetables, baby supplies and supplies for holiday meals and gatherings. Now, they’ll have to find a ride or use public transit to get groceries elsewhere in the city.
The Good Food Junction, a cooperative grocery store designed to provide healthy fruit and vegetables to core neighbourhood residents, will have its last day of operations on Jan. 27. Audra Krueger, vice-chair of the store’s board, said the Junction wasn’t producing enough sales to stay open.
Picking out fruit and vegetables at the store on Friday afternoon, Valerie Phillip said she shopped at the Good Food Junction to support the local grocery. Now she’s concerned about the families in the area who depended on the store.
“It’s pretty devastating for the people here in the community,” she said.
“They are lower-income people and, being a First Nations person, I understand the plight that some are in and I think it’s terrible that it’s closing. This store actually helps them out when they don’t have much to spend on food.”
Standing in line at the checkout of the Good Food Junction, Donna Littlecrow said she’ll have to travel further for her groceries.
“It will be a little sad, because I usually come to the Mother Centre upstairs, so then I have my time down here to come and grab stuff while I’m in the area and it’s close to a bus route as well,” she said.
Patrick Smith said he will miss the store, but he wondered if more could have been done to make it attractive to customers in the community and from across the city.
“I’ve been supporting this place and shopping here as much as I can, but the ratio of junk food versus good food was too high.”
Smith said he hopes people can draw lessons the shop’s pending closure.
“I hope we can maybe learn from the mistakes and create a new cooperative and reinvigorate it,” he said. “I’m interested in seeing this flourish. Maybe a new entity can take it over and do something great with it.”
I’m interested in seeing this flourish. Maybe a new entity can take it over and do something great with it.