Jordyn and Miles Pennington of Beaver County have recently started their new business called Grocery Delivery, serving Tofield and the surrounding area.
“I am currently working as a substitute teacher and Miles works in Edmonton as an industrial insulator. I already order our groceries from Superstore in Edmonton and Miles brings them home after work, so I figured why not help others do the same?” Pennington said.
Pennington was raised in the Tofield area, growing up on a grain farm and attending CW Sears and Tofield School before furthering her education to become an elementary teacher. She and her husband have recently moved back to the area and bought a hobby farm between Tofield and Ryley.
Currently, grocery delivery day is Tuesday, with Sunday evenings being the weekly order cutoff. People can order their groceries by sending screenshots to Pennington through Facebook.
“They go on the PC app and add items to the cart as if they were checking out themselves. They then take screenshots of the items that they want, send them to me through Facebook Messenger, and then I place their order and confirm a total. They send an e-transfer to hold those groceries, and we don’t accept that etransfer until the groceries are delivered,” said Pennington.
Each grocery order must reach a $100 minimum, and comes with a pickup fee which is 10 per cent of the total order, up to a maximum of $25. If the groceries are being delivered to a location or home outside of the town of Tofield or village of Ryley, a delivery fee, calculated in distance from the Pennington home, is added.
“Depending on where they live we also confirm the delivery cost. If they live in town or choose Tofield or Ryley as their pickup location, there’s no delivery fee. If we’re delivering outside of Tofield, in the country or even as far as Holden, we’ll add a delivery cost, the distance from our house,” she said.
Pennington said this business venture is a very new idea, having only thought about doing it herself about six months ago.
“I have a girlfriend who is running something very similar between Hinton and Edson.
It was the same thing: her husband works in Edson, but they live in Hinton and they don’t have a large option in regards to groceries,” she said.
“But I do want people to know that we don’t want to be in competition with IGA. I am a huge supporter of IGA, I go in there almost every day, myself, but unfortunately, I have three kids under six and we know that inflation is crazy and some of those bigger grocery hauls just can’t happen at a smaller grocery store.
“We are not trying to take away business from IGA. We’re just trying to supplement the options that people have for larger grocery hauls, especially because orders have to be a minimum of $100,” said Pennington.
This is the family’s sixth week of deliveries, and Pennington said more people are hearing about the service they offer.
“I think people are starting to learn about us, and also beginning to think about placing an order. It doesn’t have to be a consistent, every week thing that they order from us. Order, take six weeks off, it doesn’t matter, I just want people to know that we’re in the community and we’re here to help them if they want,” she said.
Monthly promotions are also run, with the most recent being a weekly draw for a PC gift card.
“For the month of May, anybody who orders gets entered into a draw to win a $25 PC gift card that they can use toward their groceries ordering through us. For the month of April, pickup fees were waived. We’ll change it up every month to keep things different,” she said.
Pennington also said in regards to substitutions with online ordering, all orders are set to no substitutions, and the money will be deducted off the customer’s next order.
“Normally, when you do a PC Express they offer substitutions if an item you’re looking for is unavailable. We set it so there are no substitutions for anybody. We credit them back that item cost, and deduct it off their next order,” she said.
But groceries are not all that the Pennington’s have and are able to deliver. Most recently, they’ve picked up and delivered goat panels for a Beaver County family.
“We’ve actually done a pickup for one family, and delivered goat panels. They have just recently moved to the area and didn’t have the means of getting those goat panels.
“We own a farm, so we have that equipment. So, it was the same thing except Miles just took the truck that day. We have the option and the means to deliver other items if people need other things from the city. We’re open to delivering most anything.”
Kari Janzen
Staff Reporter
