Top Ten Produce offers a range of staples and fresh produce. They carry a great selection of fresh produce, bread, fish and dairy, spices and seasonings, drinks, canned and packaged goods, frozen foods and snacks. This location has been a down-to-earth staple in the Point Grey neighbourhood for many years.
Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?
Answer: We buy all our products from local food distribution companies. The products aren’t always local, but the distribution companies – like Van Whole Produce and Produce Terminal – are B.C.-owned businesses. We stock local products whenever we can. We buy products from about 80 suppliers and about 60 of them are local – that’s 75%! Our fresh produce is about 50% local, but that jumps to about 75% in the summer months. Although we do a lot of our own bookkeeping and accounting, we do use some local service providers. For instance, we hire a local neighbourhood guy to wash our windows.
Question: What social and environmental practices are you proud of?
Answer: We’re a steady employer to 8 local staff; we pay above minimum wage and provide our longer-term management staff with benefits. Our staff are 100% from Vancouver, so we provide good local jobs and reduce our impact from employee travel.
We’ve reduced our energy use by swapping out our lighting for more energy efficient bulbs. We recycle all we can, especially all the cardboard we get from our suppliers. We’re also proud of all the support we give to the community. We donate gift baskets and gift certificates to local causes, and donate to most of the local area schools. We probably donate about 1% of our revenue.
