Sorry for our hiatus...
As you may have noticed, we've been a bit silent since late last year—we stopped marketing even though we still have been delivering orders. During this time, we took a step back to understand what was working and what wasn't. We delivered thousands and thousands of orders to Albertans all over! Supporting local farmers and producers all while championing our Bessie employees with fair wages. Living our values every single day.
But...our small team was burnt out.
One of our oldest promises was to always be transparent; whether that's with our pricing, our operations, or simply how our team is doing. We made some needed changes so Bessie can continue to bring healthy food to your door! We have so much to share. Read below for it all!
What's new?
To celebrate breaking the silence, we have an exciting new limited time products!
Introducing Tartistes
Premium savoury quiche ready for you to pop in the oven and enjoy! These fully cooked, tasty quiches are made with love from beautiful Burnaby, BC. For a limited time Bessie Box will be carrying their Roasted Red Pepper Spinach & Goat’s Cheese, Caramelized Onion & Gruyere, and Asparagus & Asiago quiches. Can't wait to try them out? Click here to order!
Save on Atlantic Salmon and Chicken!
For a limited time we're offering discounts off Full Atlantic Salmon fillets and Chicken Drumsticks!
New Delivery Times now with Refrigerated Trucks
Bessie is working much more closely with our wholesale partner "North Sea"—this means that we are now sharing a warehouse and refrigerated trucks for all deliveries. If you have requests, comments, or feedback please let us know so we can maintain a quality experience through the change.
The new delivery times are below:
Calgary:
- Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri 12PM - 4PM
Cochrane & Chestermere:
- Tues 12PM - 4PM
Okotoks:
- Thurs 12PM - 4PM
Airdrie:
- Fri 12PM - 4PM
How is Bessie doing?
Bessie ended 2021 with some of our busiest days ever! See the pic below—we had hundreds of orders for the holidays via our corporate giving/group ordering plus our "normal" deliveries.
But the end of year also came with some difficult realities. The increase of food costs from "inflation" have hit Bessie very hard—we have always been slow to pass price increases to our customers because we didn't feel like we earned it.
For many small businesses like us, this means narrow/zero profit margins and hard decisions on how to stay afloat. Our owners (Shanika, Alex, and Spencer) always ate last—and after 3 years we were running on empty. Because of this we had to make many changes to the Bessie team. This included moving to part-time ourselves. True to our values, we helped all of our departing staff land on their feet with new jobs at great organizations—one even started their own ramen business...
We've limited our service area to Calgary and surrounding areas. We also closed our Edmonton warehouse. These difficult changes kept Bessie alive and able to continue supporting our customers and local producer partners.
What's next for Bessie?
Bessie is ready to grow again! We're going to be ramping up our partnership with our wholesale partner North Sea to keep the prices you pay from increasing. We trust the North Sea team so much—shout out Brendan and Anita—and see them as part of our Bessie family.
Expect to see more sales and special seasonal products as we work together to bring new energy and excitement back to Bessie. =]
Questions?
We're here for you!
Please reach out to Spencer with any questions you may have: spencer@bessiebox.com