A History of Sustainability

Askew's has a long history of green and sustainable actions.

We buy and sell local products.  For many years, under the leadership of  grandfather RB (Dick) Askew and father Lloyd, we operated our own meatpacking plant processing local livestock for sale at both wholesale and retail levels.

We continue to sell local fruit and vegetables, bread and baked goods and a limited amount of local meat.  Government regulation has made it difficult for small meat plants to operate, restricting supply.

Local Suppliers

We have hundreds of local suppliers including:  Gort’s Gouda, D Dutchman Dairy, Shady Acres Berry Farm, Hanna & Hanna, Stinky Rows Garlic Farm, Hoi Mai Berry, Armstrong Asparagus Farm, Silver Star Apiaries,  Nude Food for Dogs, White Lake Organics, Kootenay Bakery Café Co-op, Laura’s Pies, Happy Days Dairy, Birch Haven Farms, Fresh is Best Salsa, Craig’s Bakery, Colonial Farms, Vernon Sausage, Bonanza, PT Fruit Market and Shuswap Coffee Company.

Recycling

When BC Liquor stores started bundling cardboard boxes and shipping them out, they didn’t realize the boxes were already being recycled in Salmon Arm by Askew’s who used them to pack meat and grocery orders.  One of current GM David Askew’s first jobs was to remove the dividers from the boxes in the back of the pickup that his father Lloyd had picked up from the liquor store.  In all his childhood years of doing this task, he only found one forgotten bottle of booze. 

Heat Recovery

When Lloyd was building his first supermarket in 1967, he incorporated his wholesale meat department and locker plant.  As a result, he had much more horsepower of refrigeration equipment than the average store.  He decided at that time it would be worthwhile to put in heat recovery, to use the waste heat from the refrigeration cycle to heat the store in winter.  In those days of cheap energy, the payback period was 18 years but Lloyd planned to be in business a long time and was sure he would recover his investment.  History proved him correct, as that Salmon Arm store will celebrate its 44th year in business this November.

Sustainability for the Future

Building on Lloyd’s leadership, Askew's new store in Salmon Arm will be a model of green and sustainable development.  First of all it is part of Askew’s Uptown, a mixed-use development incorporating living, shopping and socializing in the same location.  Askew’s store is designed to make use of natural light and will have a sophisticated heat recovery and heating system that will require little if any extra energy beyond that purchased to run the refrigeration system to heat the store, preheat the hot water with energy left over to share with the Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union office building.  Askew's new store has applied and expects to qualify for a BC Hydro New Construction Grant based on an energy study to verify the projected energy savings.

Other sustainable measures will include retention of storm water to be used for irrigation of the landscaping.  This measure will reduce the amount of storm water that goes into the storm drains. Askew's led the way in the use of reusable grocery bags and uses plastic bags manufactured from recycled plastic.

Askew’s is committed to selling local food to local people, from stores designed for sustainability that are located close to where the majority of residents live.