LAKELAND – While baking sugar cookies and other holidays treats may be on the mind of many residents as December nears, Christmas baking could be a challenge this season as some grocery stores in the Lakeland – and beyond – are noting sugar shortages.
Paulette Guard, a business owner from Bonnyville who sells various baked goods, spoke to Lakeland Today during a farmer’s market in St. Paul on Nov. 24. She noted that grocery stores in Bonnyville are low on sugar.
“Some you can’t find any at all. So, I’ve had to travel here to St. Paul and also in Cold Lake,” to try to find sugar, says Guard.
She hopes the shortage will be over soon.
“The time of year that it’s happening is very unfortunate... and people are doing a lot of Christmas baking. So, I think, it’s going to be troublesome for a lot of people at this point.”
Lakeland Today also reached out to several grocery stores in the Lakeland.
Katherine McNea with No Frills Cold Lake, confirms there is a sugar shortage at the Cold Lake grocery store. And while new shipments of sugar came in, they have been selling at a rapid rate as soon as they are put on the shelves.
“We don’t get them that often... hopefully, the situation will improve in the next couple of weeks.”
Khalil Abougouche, a manager at IGA Lac La Biche, says they are also having challenges with sugar and, “I don’t know how long it could last.” He says they also ordered more sugar, “But we might get them or we might not. We don’t know until it actually arrives.”
Kory Kralkay, director of operations at Cornerstone Co-op, also says the Cornerstone Co-op grocery store in St. Paul is having shortages in sugar. Cornerstone serves stores in Mannville, Wainwright, St. Paul, Elk Point, Vermilion, Dewberry, and Provost.
Kralkay says the shortage began earlier this fall. “It didn’t affect us immediately... until probably [the] end of October,” he says. “By the first week of November, we really noticed it.”
According to Kralkay, all Co-ops in Western Canada get their products from the same wholesale channel, and the strike at Rogers Sugar in Vancouver, which has been happening for around two months, created some urgency within the Co-ops.
Until the situation gets resolved, there will likely be continued shortages.
The Vancouver refinery strike started on Sept. 28 when 138 workers started picketing.
The president of Public and Private Workers of Canada Local 8, Adrian Soldera, told the Canadian Press (CP) that the union is striking over “issues like wages, benefits and the company's proposal to increase refinery operations to 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.”
Locally, Kralkay asks customers to be mindful and respectful of others. At Cornerstone Co-op, there is a limit on how many bags of sugar a customer can purchase to prevent any kind of hoarding.
“We’re trying to do our best due diligence to encourage customers to do the right thing.”
In addition, Kralkay also suggests using alternatives to sugar, like honey.
“There are options other than sugar for sweetening, for baking, and things like that. One thing that I would like to suggest... we have lots of really great local honey providers.”
He added, “Honey is a great natural sweetener,” that can be used for many recipes.
“I would just encourage supporting your local honey vendors, especially in this time of need... there’s nothing better than to support a local vendor who lives in our community.”
