Discount bread store closed permanently

At four loaves for a buck, bags of bread were flying off the shelves at the McCain’s Discount Bread Outlet store on Quinn Street as customers grabbed armfuls to fill their freezers.
It was the last day for the store, which closed permanently on Oct. 15, and the bargain-basement prices left those shelves bare at the end of the day for store employees Heather Kennedy and Debbie Blakely.
Kennedy and Blakely know there's no other bread store in the city that regularly discounts $5 loaves of bread and sells them for $1.25. Their customers, especially seniors, students and lower-income families struggling to keep on top of the bills, will feel the pinch the most on their grocery bill.
For them, the cost of living just became more expensive.
Joyce Miller was back for a second trip on closing day. The low prices and the friendly staff made her a regular customer years ago.
“I have a neighbour with six children and so I thought while I’m here I’ll grab her some too,” said Miller. “Five of them are in school and they all pack lunches so they go through a lot of bread. They have such a variety, they have all kinds of goodies here and I’ll just miss it all.”
Local schools that have breakfast and lunch programs to feed kids will also have to look for another source of cheap bread.
“People are devastated, all the seniors that can’t afford bread in the stores,” said Blakely. “I’ve made friends with the people who come in here. I enjoyed coming to work every day and talking to customers, I felt very at home here.”
For more than 20 years, trucks have been delivering racks of bread, buns, bagels, muffins, cookies and cakes that didn't get sold at the stores and restaurants that order from the company's huge Canada Bread headquarters in Langley. That all came to an end two a week ago Tuesday when Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican conglomerate that bought Canada Bread five years ago, decided to close all of its McGavin’s Bread Basket stores in B.C. The shutdowns began last year and the Prince George store was the last to go.
"People really loved this store," said Kennedy, a 10-year employee. "They've been depending on us for years and years and we've had so many people say they don't know what they're going to do now, where they're going to get their bread. Bread is sometimes $5 a loaf and they can't afford that. There's nowhere in town you can get a loaf of bread for $1.25 or sometimes two for 50 cents.
“It’s really sad to see this place go. We already have too much waste in this world and I can’t believe they’re going to add to that.”
Drivers will continue to supply stores and restaurants in and around the city but all unsold bread will be trucked back to the bakery in Langley and processed into animal feed.
Deanna Little had her pick-up truck backed into the loading bay filled with bags of bread that had gone past their expiry dates. The discount store was a weekly stop for Little to deliver treats like cinnamon bread to her pigs, chickens, turkeys and cows on her farm east of the city. She’s among 30 farmers close to the city who have been buying stale bread that would have otherwise have been disposed of in the landill.
“I’m going to miss the girls more than anything, they’re like family," said Little. “I’ve been coming here off and on for 20 years.”
Wally McCue has been a regular customer for 16 years and especially loved the multigrain bread. He bought supplies of baked goods too old to sell to give to his farm animals on his property in Beaverly. On closing day he came by with going-away gifts for Kennedy and Blakely, a token of his appreciation for all the money their store has saved McCue and his family over the years.
“This store does a great service for the community, for the lower-income people and I’m very sorry to see that go,” said McCue. “The prices were exceptional and the staff was top-shelf and I’ll be sorry to see these girls go. Someone hopefully will pick up the slack, but I don’t know who will step up to the plate.”
The McGavin’s Discount Bread Outlet store was originally on George Street and moved into the light industrial area at 2140 Quinn St., more than two decades ago.
Costco held a contract with the store on Quinn to sell its unsold baked goods and customers could buy products that went as much as two days beyond the best-before expiry date.
Real Canadian Superstore on Ferry Avenue has its own bakery and disposes of bread it can’t sell.
“We either sell it or mark it down or get rid of it,” said Real Canadian Superstore manager Chris Hopwood. “We do donate stuff to the food bank.”
Save-On-Foods also donates its older bread products to The Salvation Army’s food bank program.
“All our stuff goes to Salvation Army and they distribute it to whoever needs it through their contacts,” said Neil Guardiero, store manager of the College Heights Save-On-Foods.
“Our initiative is to try to be zero waste, so we’ve been doing that probably for six or seven months. We separate it at store level and if it’s outdated or non-edible it goes to them, the Salvation Army, and they send it to ranchers for compost. Nothing goes in their garbage anymore. They pick it up every day at our store and they make that decision.”