Food-X Urban Delivery to Bring Sustainable Grocery Delivery to First Customer

Spud.ca, through our new company Food-X Urban Delivery Inc., is pleased to announce Walmart Canada as our first national customer. Food-X is a platform that allows Walmart and other retailers to deliver food in Metro Vancouver in the most environmentally friendly manner possible in compliance with the standards, mission and values that have driven our company for 20 years.

Our mission at Spud.ca is to “Change the world one bite at a time”, and for 20 years our actions have been guided towards minimizing the environmental impact of grocery delivery. We have worked hard and come a long way and through technological innovations, we’re now leading the industry in terms of sustainable logistics practices for food delivery. Our current produce waste is 0.5 percent compared to the average retailer of more than five percent. Our new facility will have state-of-the-art organic waste bio digesters. By consolidating customer orders, we will be able to reduce the number of trucks on the road.

While our agreement with Walmart may unsettle some of our supporters, we believe giving them access to Food-X is another step toward achieving our goals. Yes, our two brands are uniquely different, but Food-X will help Walmart better fulfill last mile home delivery challenges, and through better warehousing and consolidating orders, we’ll help to reduce waste, truck trips and lower GHG emissions. If our mission is to become reality, then we must be prepared to share and collaborate on food waste and GHG reduction with all Food-X customers including the world’s largest retailer.

Spud.ca has not changed our values around the food we provide our customers. Food-X will allow us to better support the local and organic food movement through an increased product offering from local providers. The Spud.ca offering will not be impacted; we will still maintain our banned ingredients list and source local first. Our focus on local organic and GMO free is stronger than ever. We will always believe in supporting local and organic foods and we will continue to encourage others to do the same.

Spud.ca employs local residents, delivers food to local neighbourhoods and supports a thriving local economy through our purchasing processes and community outreach programs.

To our customers who have supported us over the years, you shop at Spud.ca because you believe there is a better way, and you have always shared your thoughts on how we can be better. I hope you’ve seen that we are getting better, gaining more understanding and closing in on reaching our mission, though we have many miles before us. We’re not quite a plastic-free facility yet and although we are leading the way on low food waste, there is so much more we can do. And we will get there.

Your desire to support a small local company focused on sustainable local food practices has created something bigger and more important — and that’s sharing your core values of local and sustainability to the mainstream and showing everyone there is a better way.

Thank you from all the team members of Spud.ca, Be Fresh Local Market and Blush Lane Organic Market. If you have any questions or concerns, I am here to answer them. You can reach me at peter@spud.ca.

Peter van Stolk