Legacy Greens puts values ahead of profits Owner of Kitchener grocery store promotes healthy choices
J
ordan Dolson knows that merchandising choices she makes at her grocery store mean Legacy Greens is less profitable than it could be. And she’s okay with that. For Dolson, 35, providing healthy food options for her customers in Kitchener, ON is more important than padding the bottom line. “It’s more of a passion project than a way to get rich,” she says with a smile. Refreshingly candid about the financial aspects of Legacy Greens, Dolson told an audience at a MEDA hub breakfast that she pays herself $22 an hour. “I didn’t have this for the first three years of running my business,” she says. “Now I feel financially secure.” Raised on a farm in southwestern Ontario, she never thought seriously about food and agriculture until Grade 12, when she was captivated by a speaker from an area vegetable farm in her environmental studies class. But risk-taking and food production run in the family. Her parents gave up their careers and bought a farm in 1985 when they had two small children. “I never appreciated that as a kid, that they took that risk of entrepreneurship with their lives. I actually never appreciated living on a farm at that time.” After attending university in British Columbia, she wanted a career in the public sector. She worked for the
federal government for several years, then took a municipal job. Impressed by Vancouver’s vibrant independent grocery store scene and feeling unfulfilled in her job, she considering grocery as a possible future enterprise. When she turned 30, she moved back to Ontario. After landing a municipal contract position, she started Legacy Greens as a small market garden in 2014 on a quarter-acre plot at her parents’ farm. She grew vegetables that she sold at a farmer’s market, a restaurant and a grocery store. That parttime operation netted her around $1,500 the first year.
photos by Kamil Ahmed
Jordan Dolson prices produce at Legacy Greens similar to what chain supermarkets charge. The Marketplace September October 2019
“I learned what it was like to be a supplier, and I think that is really valuable now that I am a retailer dealing with many suppliers. Suppliers like to get paid, and they like when you’re excited when they bring you their food.” During a trip to Kenya to visit a friend, she was impressed by the energy of entrepreneurs there. If they could grow businesses in that challenging emerging economy, “starting a greengrocer in Kitchener-Waterloo shouldn’t be a big deal,” she reasoned. In early 2015, Dolson found a storefront on Kitchener’s main street and negotiated a six-month lease to test
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