With continued havoc on the Broadway corridor HOTRO has seen a huge drop in traffic. Added to this, most of you are aware of the scaffolding out the front, blocking most peoples view of the front window and signage. We continue to struggle with this significantly smaller circle of customers, but many of you who live close by are still making the journey and we thank you for your continued support.
Hopefully we can still see a loyal online order following to offset some of the loss in physical store visits, until the scaffolding is down, and then finally when the work is complete.
In the meantime we have been seeing a steady increase in new wholesale stores we supply, and should be finally going into IGA and Fresh Street Market in the next couple of weeks.This will help significantly with our bottom line, and cash flow as 34 stores come online with our products.
Additionally as many of you know, we have spent huge sums of money on air conditioning in the last year ($20,000), only for three units to fail on us during that time, and the labour costs have been staggeringly high. That said we are now waiting on the latest estimate to replace a part, having just found out that the unit we have has been discontinued so replacing the compressor is a non starter this time around.
Anyway, our goal is to get the store back to normal in terms of access and temperature! In the interim we ask that you help us by placing orders online, as you normally do, and share the word on our goal to be the most local supplier of healthy, sustainable, and ethically sourced foods to the Lower Mainland!