Once a year I need to do an inventory of the store as part of my financial year end so I want everyone out there to be cognizant that we will be closed on Thursday, May 31st, 2012.

Thank you for your understanding and sorry for any inconvenience this ay cause any of you.

- Posted May 17th, 2012

Back at the beginning of April Tammy (store manager) went down to a small farm operation in to work in the vegetable fields of one of our suppliers. She has now posted her blog at the Discovery Organics website and the experience is that few people get the opportunity to see and participate in – where their food comes from.

So if you are interested in read about Tammy’s adventure check out the Discovery Organics' website.

The following photograph is of Tammy with some of the staff at Earth’s General Store (L-R Raydel, Tammy, Alex, Layne, and my son Timothy) holding some beets from the farm that Tammy worked on. Along with our customers we complete the chain.

- Posted May 17th, 2012

Quite a few people asked me to stock the Little Creek salad dressings over the past few months and so recently I started a conversation with the company that makes them. They are based out of Kelowna in the Okanogan and started their business in a small organic way.

They are not certified organic and that was what delayed me deciding to have them as a stock item until I did a little further investigation and found out that the majority of their items are organic – especially the oils.

So we now carry the ‘Original’, ‘Cesar’, ‘Spicy Strawberry’ and ‘Cherry Balsamic’.  They are also vegan products.

AND as a first in Edmonton (as far as I know) you can refill your Original and Cesar  dressing and save a glass bottle. Another first for Earth’s General Store.

Yahooie! I wasn’t even aware that this was happening. I really appreciate those people that voted for our little store. Wild Earth Foods won the category. This is an annual poll/assessment conducted by Vue magazine.

Thank you for making us part of your lives, your community, and for all your continued support.

The citizens of this area of Edmonton (Old Strathcona/Mill Creek) have the most options available for great grocery shopping. You have the Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market, Blush Lane (newly opened Edmonton store of this Calgary based company), Planet Organic (unsure who now owns this corporate entity but last I heard it is a venture capitalist fund out of Toronto), Wild Earth Foods and of course my biased favourite – Earths’ General Store.

Have a great day.

- Posted May 15th, 2012

Jamie Oliver has done much in his short life to raise the awareness of the poor food we are feeding ourselves or being allowed to be fed to us and our children. One of Jamie’s big targets are school meals. I quite agree with him on this aspect (though would love for him to also bring in more plant based aspects).

So the other day I noticed that Jamie had pronounced May 19th as Food Revolution Day and since I like to be part of revolutions I jumped right in with a fundraiser event for that day. We will be having a barbecue (veggie hot dogs).

So come out and support a food shift in Edmonton at this event at Earth’s General Store this coming Saturday, May 19th, 2012. Barbecue will start around 11:00am and go until around 3:00pm. Three dollars will get you one Yves veggie dog (bun and condiments) and a Santa Cruz organic pop or hot coffee (roasted and brewed right here at Earth’s General Store). One dollar from each sale will go to support the work of this foundation.

We have just received an order of soap nuts (after being out of stock for a couple of months. Being a little frustrated with our supply, partly because they didn’t have the bags to repackage the soap nuts, I decided to start stocking them in bulk.

AND you can save over 20% over the packaged price.

I like that – less packaging and saving money.

Let the cleaning begin!

- Posted May 12th, 2012

Some time ago, like 18 months, customers were asking me to bring in a product called “Holy Crap”. I did some research and contacted the company to see if I could bring it into the store. I was advised the price of case and realized it was a very high priced item. They weren’t able to supply me at that time because they were so busy fulfilling orders following their pitch on “Dragon’s Den”.

Then some people started to come into the store to buy the ingredients that were in “Holy Crap” – chia seeds (black), hemp hearts (hulled hemp seeds), hulled buckwheat, cranberries (they don’t say on the package whether the cranberries are sweetened or not), raisins, little cubes of dried apples, and cinnamon. Seems simple enough so they just bought the ingredients and mixed them up.

We are fortunate that a world class Raw Food chef (the one that trained the kitchen staff at Noorish Cafe), Robyn Unrau is in Edmonton for the next 6 months and we have arranged with her to conduct a series of raw food preparation classes. As you can see below, these classes cover most aspects of a person’s healthier diet.

You can even graduate with a Living Foods Chef Level I certificate if you complete all the sessions.

(From 6:50 pm to 9:00 pm each Sunday - at Earth's General Store)

Earth’s General Store has not carried Kashi products because I did not like the ingredients so I now don’t have to take the time to remove them fro our store shelves. Yesterday I received a letter from Kashi via our supplier/distributor and have cut and pasted it below for our customers to review.

Weird – both local music festival tickets arrived on the same day.

Wild Oats & Notes is a music festival held out near Tolfield Alberta on July 1st long weekend - see their website for more details.

Wild Oats and Notes returns every two years to the Schultz farmstead in the Ketchamoot district, just south of Tofield, Alberta. Close to a thousand friends and relatives descend upon the yard in celebration of live music, agriculture, and all things rural. 2012 marks the eighth edition of the festival, a non-profit venture that invests net proceeds into the local community in a number of ways.

Wild Oats and Notes cultivates a taste for live performances while embracing the values of rural living and respect for the land. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

The Advance Weekend Pass is $90 ($110 at Gate). You can buy individual day passes Friday night Single – $35, Sat./Sun. Single – $50. Youth Under 16 – Free (nice). (Kids: Yes – Dogs: No)

You can also camp out there and the extra cost is $30 Per Unit.