Westport’s only grocery store finds its own way to deal with minimum-wage increase

The owners of the only grocery store in Westport, a village with a population of about 800, knew they would be in tight once Ontario’s minimum-wage increase kicked in earlier this month.

“An increase of this amount, put in place this quickly wouldn’t be a matter of keeping up with status quo,” Neil Kudrinko, owner of Kudrinko’s said. “Additional measures were going to be necessary in order to be able to handle it all at once.”

Kudrinko wanted to avoid cutting staff hours or raising prices more than was necessary, so those “additional measures” included doing away with the printing of flyers, and instead, sending them out digitally, saving about $20,000 per year.

The grocery store will also begin charging for grocery bags, something it avoided until now. That will save about $10,000 per year.

“I think they have to do what they have to do to make a living,” Joyce Lapointe, a customer of Kudrinko’s for the past 16 years said. “If other things go up, they can’t raise their prices too much more in the store.”

Kudrinko admits if he hadn’t implemented the cost-cutting measures, the average price of buying groceries at his store would have risen about 11 per cent by the time minimum wage hits $15 an hour next year. With larger cities or towns within driving distance, he didn’t want to force his customers to shop elsewhere.

“People have cars, they’re able to drive. People are in Kingston quite often for work or appointments, and other reasons. Perth is only 20 minutes away,” Kudrinko said. “So we are definitely sensitive.”

The Village of Westport has a perennial population of about 800, but that balloons in the summer because of tourists. When the tourists leave, it’s tough on businesses like Kudrinko’s.

Now that the minimum wage has increased to $14 an hour, it’s even harder.

There’s still a gap of about $45,000 a year to make up. Store hours on certain days, at least in non-tourist times of the year have been shortened, and prices will rise slightly, just not as much as if they weren’t able to find savings elsewhere.