First, thank you. Sales have been continuing to climb, and I notice. Every one of you who chose us this month instead of somewhere else, that adds up to something real.
For you regulars who have been hitting even harder (we know who you are), I’d love for it to keep going, so let’s talk about why we cost what we cost, because I think some of you already know and some of you deserve further explanation.
Last week I went to Oliver’s Market. Senior discount day, ten percent off. I found the same Black Pig bacon we carry, dry cured in Healdsburg by Duskie and John, on their shelf for $21.99. With the discount, still just under twenty dollars. Ours is $18. No discount day required. Just the regular price, every day. I realize this is not the case with every item we carry, but this one stood out. Before you ask, I was there buying turkey bacon for my sister-in-law. I couldn’t help but notice the same brand for $4 more than we sell.
We are not a low-cost store. I won’t pretend otherwise. Our pantry items are the best, and the best cost more. Our produce is priced to keep the practices behind it fair. But fair and cheap aren’t the same thing, and I want to be honest about the difference. Our prices reflect what farmers and producers actually need to keep doing this work, and what it costs us to sell their food before it stops being good. Cheap food means cheap labor, subsidies, and mass production.
Here’s the part most people never think about. Say we buy ten bunches of beets. We might sell six of those bunches just to cover what we paid for all ten. The profit, if there is any, comes from the last four. That’s the whole business, compressed into one number. Everything before that fourth bunch is just paying the farmer back.
That math is also why our cooler space stays tight and our buying stays tight all week. Sometimes this means we sell out early. We’re not stockpiling. We buy what we can sell fresh, sell it, and buy again. No long rotation, no back stock aging in a walk-in. It means less room for error, but it also means what’s on the shelf hasn’t been sitting there deciding whether it still counts as fresh.
To the regulars who already get this, who trust that our prices mean something: thank you. You’ve been paying attention to the fourth bunch of beets longer than I’ve been writing about it. And to everyone else, now you know what you’re actually looking at.
So no, we’re probably not going to have a senior discount day. But we will keep buying ten bunches of beets and hoping you take the last four off our hands. See you this week