Among the grocery store items hit by supply chain disruptions from highway closures out of the lower mainland, the one thing consumers are clamouring for almost above all else is milk. Like the many acts of kindness taking place across the hard-hit areas of the province, residents of Osoyoos and Oliver continue to step up and help those in need.
At Oliver Global Grocers, Riz Gaba and her husband Deepak used their social media presence and storefront to be a sort of ‘milk station’ where people could both donate milk and for those in need, pick up milk. As of Thursday, she says over two dozen people have availed themselves of the generosity of many others.
Milk powder bumps clothes
And for Osoyoos’ Pars Yorston who ended up stranded in Vancouver, a flight to Penticton this weekend has provided an opportunity to fill up her suitcase with milk powder and infant formula for people in need in the community.
Yorston was in the lower mainland because her daughter had just given birth to her second baby and her husband was unable to drive down to pick her up.
Milk for the youngest member of the family. Oliver Global Grocer photo.
“I saw all the posts about the grocery stores and Global Grocers about powdered milk and babies and I just felt so heartbroken and my daughter just had a baby so it’s resonating with me.”
Her husband who is back here in Osoyoos went to the supermarket and couldn’t believe his eyes and related the situation to her. “Parents who have children with no milk, it must be just the worst feeling ever,” she said.
“I decided that I will leave all my clothes behind and just try to fill my suitcase with powdered milk and baby formula – just something to maybe help someone. It just seems so dire, I just feel so bad for these parents when people are being so shameful and hoarding all the milk, these poor children, the adults can go without milk.”
Getting the message out on social media Yorston asked people who are in desperate need and she’s had people message her back and she will just “take people at face value.”
In the notoriously harsh world of social media, Yorston says the reception to her post surprised her. “I’m just so amazed at how generous people are with their thoughts and their words and their kindness.”
But the flip slide is the selfishness displayed by those hoarding. “These people are buying all the stuff in the grocery store, what about the elderly or single mothers or whoever, that live paycheque-to-paycheque and can’t go to the store and hoard and buy things like four jugs of milk,” she says.
“It’s just sickening the whole mentality of looking out for yourself, I just can’t understand that.”
The ‘milk station’
For owners of Oliver and Pentiction Global Grocers, Riz and Deepak Gaba, their involvement in the ‘milk movement’ began on Tuesday night when bulk buying prompted the couple to close their store early.
We saw the similarity when Covid hit and there was a shortage of supplies – or that’s what everybody thought it was going to be – so it’s a similar case now with the flooding.
She adds that people tend to think that not only there is a shortage of goods but that the price is going to rise and this fuels hoarding.
Gaba says they wholesale as well, for example, people coming from the Kootenay’s typically buy in bulk. “But what we saw during Covid times and this past two days as well, is that locals have started doing that as well.”
She also says some people find it hard to understand that prices won’t automatically rise because of the situation. “We have paid for the goods at that price, but the container shortage because of Covid has already hiked up the price this is not going to add extra cost it’s going to come from the same place it does all the time.”
Global Grocers’ first post kicked things off.
Gaba put limits on eggs, one dozen per person, “don’t buy six dozen because somebody else needs it as well and it’s the same thing with milk, people just bought tons and tons of milk and of course I ran out. Two or three or four I’d let you buy it but then I’m not going to let you buy 20 at one time.”
The tipping point where Gaba knew she had to do something came when she got a call at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday from a customer looking for milk with a baby crying in the background.
“They had gone to Oliver, Osoyoos, OK Falls, Penticton and they were also willing to travel to Kelowna in the middle of the night because of the child. They had no dry milk and almond milk and soy milk, the child wouldn’t take.
“The father was desperate so we thought in the morning we will do a post because we’re quite active online in the community,” Gaba says.
They put up the post for the parents that desperately needed milk and customers started coming in, she says. Of those who came in for milk, some wanted to give money but Gaba underscores it was all for free.
On one of the mornings, Gaba saw a woman standing outside of the door before she had opened for the day. The woman’s child has special needs and is obsessed with cereal and she had come from Osoyoos to get some milk.
Another customer who had travelled from Penticton was making his last stop in his quest to find milk for his two-year-old and that was his last stop.
“He was asking for milk and another customer overheard him talking to me and she went home just to give the gentleman a jug of milk that she had at home. She had a 10-year-old at home but she said never mind he can have other food it’ okay.”
