Salt Spring Island

Have been on the west coast of Canada this week partially for my grandmother's 80th birthday and partially for a bit of sight seeing.....of course this also included scouting out the local grocery scene. On Salt Spring Island, a beautiful island off the coast of Vancouver Island, I went to "Natureworks", the local natural food store. Salt Spring Island is an interesting place-- to generalize, it's half affluent retirees and half hippies. This natural food store was certainly geared towards the latter-- it had a lot of complementary medicines and all the produce, even the berries, were in communal bins, where you scoop your own out. Where possible, the fresh food--fruits and vegetables, baked goods etc.--was made locally, though in reality this was a small fraction of the items. Every Saturday during the summer, Salt Spring Island has a wonderful farmer's market. I imagine the offerings in this store would vary similarly by season. In terms of frozen or branded product it was largely similar to what you find at whole foods, with a bit less selection. One big draw back for me was that it smelled like insence--I much prefer freshly baked cookies.
One of the other grocery stores on the Island was a bit more my style-- Thrifty's Foods: http://www.thriftyfoods.com/common/index.html.
Thrifty's is a chain of grocers that operate only on the west coast of British Columbia. They are full service stores--bakeries, butchers etc., and offer leading brand name products as well as some house brand ones--but they retain a local and somewhat intimate feel. In terms of dairy products, they feature Island Farms, a local company.
More to come on my west coast trip....