Celebrate our first 12 months with Bessie!
It wasn't easy getting here, but Bessie officially turned 1 years old. We're thankful for the farms, friends, and family that stood with us. We are so thankful for the Calgary community and have a lot of life in front of us.
Our first year was eye-opening for our young team. We made it through the joy of building something, the frustration of slow progress, and the challenge of a tragic pandemic. We ate a lot, cried a bit, and shared some food.
Now, as we stomach our growing pains and step into the "terrible twos", here's some Lessons, Goals, and Fun from year one.
Lessons
- Strong Farms. Our food comes thriving grass, soil, and water. Everyone can claim "high quality"— but what does that mean specifically? Bessie learned that we need to start with the roots: our farmers. Bessie's great food is only possible through consistent communication and honest feedback with our farmers. Making these relationships stronger is a focus for Bessie.
- Healthy Families. Our close ones deserve the best effort we have. It's non-negotiable to cut corners when health and happiness is on the table. Bessie learned that we can only grow if our customers grow first. Bessie's best improvements came by asking our customer's how we could help. Making it simpler and more natural for our customers to share (good and bad) feedback is important to us.
- Connected Communities. We try to give more to our community than we take. We donated and gave away over 1000 lbs of food. We supported our farms when their businesses dried up during this COVID-19 shutdown. We put our effort into listening, learning, and working with anyone that had time for us. Bessie grew a lot—as individual people and as community contributors. Bessie learned how tough it is to stick to our values during tough times. We're not changing that. Values comes first.
Goals:
- Share more. We are working hard on a lot of things. So many in fact that we forget what each other are doing sometimes. Bessie will share more stories from our farmers, our customers, and our communities in year two.
- Grow faster. We have learned the basics, but it's time to grow! More business means more support for our farms. We will open in Edmonton this summer and start supporting more farms!
- Earn a living. It's not complicated. Our team needs to start paying ourselves this year so we can keep doing what we love. Please note that all Bessie farmers, contractors, and help are paid fairly. We're eating last...but we still have to eat at some point!
Fun:
- Cooking, getting the perfect "Instagram" lighting and eating. Our phones are full of food we ate and friends we ate the food with.
- Visiting green fields and walking alongside healthy cows, pigs, and chickens.
- Making the dumbest mistakes...Trust us! We won't share these stories here, but we might over a (socially distanced) beer!
Thanks for everything. We cherish and love you. Here's to year two!
Alex, Shanika, and Spencer
Bessie's Chief Eating Officers
We work with more farms now. Check out the new food we have available now.
Never tried Bessie? Two words: Test Kitchen. You're going to be impressed.