Hi Everyone,

The Root Cellar has been home for two months now and I would like to express my gratitude to you all for the warm welcome, thank you. We have been working behind the scenes to add quality leaders to our teams while looking to promote leaders from within the company.  I would like to welcome our newest leaders to the team.

Paula, our new People and Culture Manager.
Sebastian, our new Store Manager.
Harsh, our new Assistant Store Manager.
I would also like to congratulate Chan on his promotion to Assistant Store Manager. Welcome Paula, Sebastian, and Harsh, and congratulations to Chan!

As our teams grow it is important everyone understands how our teams all fit and work together. Although we have different roles within the company, we all have the same focus – the customer. Our office teams are here to support our store teams in serving the customer the best we can.  With so much change and many new faces, it is important we all stay aligned and realize we are all on the same greater team working towards the same goal.

Paula, with support from Elizabeth and Alma, leads our People and Culture Team, taking care of all things human resource related, from recruitment to payroll to training programs.

Darin, with support from Tai, leads our Procurement Team, taking care of everything related to our products, prices, schematics, flyers, and ads.

Carmon, with support from Sue and Liz, leads our Finance Team taking care of our financial world, everything from accounts payable and accounts receivable to our reporting.

Susie leads our Operations Team, consisting of our store managers, assistant store managers, and Colin with our meat operations. This team you work with closely and you all take care of our customers and our stores.

Susie also leads our Marketing Team, with support from Maria, Liv, and Elyse, taking care of and creating all the great stuff we see that makes The Root Cellar brand so strong. Our office teams are here to support you to best serve our customers.

Change is constant and we are in the middle of positive change here at The Root Cellar. There is an old proverb that fits us – ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’
A warm welcome to our new team members and thank you to our existing tenured team members. The future is bright, and I look forward to us all moving forward together.

Dave

Hello everyone!

It has been great to hit the dirt running here at the Root Cellar. I look forward to meeting many of you in the near future.

TM Announcements
We are excited to welcome Sebastian Palma to our Root Cellar family as a Store Manager! Sebastian brings many years of leadership experience in several Director positions for operations and food & beverage in “5 Star” hotels. He has a passion for customer service and hospitality as well as an entrepreneurial streak having developed, managed and sold a profitable baking extract business serving retail and public markets. He will be working in both the Oxford and McKenzie stores as part of his on-boarding and looks forward to meeting our team members.

We also welcome Harsh Katyal to The Root Cellar as the McKenzie Store Assistant Manager. He brings a solid background in retail operations with Walmart Canada, managing the “Fresh Department” teams (deli, bakery, produce, meat, dairy & frozen). He is very focused on improving the customer experience, and is excited to share the knowledge he’s gained through his Certificate in Customer Delight, in addition to a Master of Commerce degree in International Business.

Our Oxford location has a new Store Assistant Manager – we are pleased to confirm Chan Hlaing has recently been promoted from his position as Front End Department Manager. Chan’s focus will be working directly with the Produce team to ensure we provide the best product possible to our customers. Congratulations Chan!

Cultural News
We certainly have had an abundance of sunshine lately. Can there be too much sunshine? Never ever. We hope that you have taken the time to both enjoy the sunshine, and spread the sunshine each day with our customers and WITH EACH OTHER!

Events
It’s been a minute since we all got together and with so many great things happening we thought “Hey – let’s get everyone together to share great food, good news and spread some sunshine amongst ourselves”! So, for now, we are planting the seed though you can expect more details from us soon on a Team Member event in September. Stay tuned!

Paula

GROCERY TEAM TAKES THE WIN!

We are thrilled to announce that our grocery management team emerged victorious earlier this month in the Phillip’s craft soda merchandising contest. The team crafted captivating displays at both our Oxford and McKenzie locations, earning them tickets to the highly anticipated Phillip’s Backyard Weekender Concert series. Be sure to check out the picture below of the display as seen at the McKenzie store!

EXCITING NEW PRODUCTS IN STORE…NOW!

In stores starting August 22nd, local chef and producer Matt Cusano is proud to provide both stores with his exciting product: Ciao Chili Calabrian Vinaigrette. This versatile dressing/sauce is going to be the talk of the city! Demos are already scheduled for Thursday, August 24th at McKenzie, and Sunday, August 27th at Cook. Make sure you stop in, say hello and have a taste for yourself. More info can be found on his website: ciaochili.ca

September marks the beginning of the end for summer fruit; and as the displays of peaches, plums, cherries, and nectarines are condensed, they will be replaced with the abundance of fall crop fruits and vegetables. New crop apples will be at the forefront with Gala, Fuji, Spartan, Mac, and Jonagolds making their new crop debuts. New crop pears will be another regular feature with expanded varieties to include Bartlett, Anjou, and Bosc. On the vegetable side, local winter squash is being harvested so look for expanded displays and increased varieties including Red Amber, Banana Squash, Pie Pumpkins, Delicata and more!

Every week the buying team hunts down the freshest and best priced products to feature in our weekly specials and mid week wonders; but did you know about our 2 day and weekend specials? These specials go out with the newsletters on Wednesday and Friday nights and feature deals so good we can only offer them for a day or two. Make sure to check out the newsletter and Instagram posts for these crazy deals and share them with your friends.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

In support of forest fire relief, we have made donations on behalf of our RC teams to the Okanagan fire, Maui fire, and Yellowknife fire. It’s worth noting that the significant fires in Kelowna are currently active in the vicinity of Little Creek Gardens, the producer of one of our favorite salad dressings. We’re relieved to share that Little Creek remains unaffected and safe amidst these challenging circumstances at this time.