I’m thrilled to be celebrating my 200th episode by sitting down with Clint Mahlman, the President and COO at London Drugs. From growing up in the stores to leading the company through a global pandemic, Clint reflects on the ‘DNA of being different,’ always learning, and what it means to show up for your community.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
I’m thrilled to be celebrating my 200th episode by sitting down with Clint Mahlman, the President and COO at London Drugs. From growing up in the stores to leading the company through a global pandemic, Clint reflects on the ‘DNA of being different,’ always learning, and what it means to show up for your community.
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I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. I'm thrilled to be celebrating my 200th episode by sitting down with Clint Mahlman, the President and CEO at London Drugs. From growing up in the stores to leading the company through a global pandemic, Clint reflects on the 'DNA of being different', always learning, and what it means to show up for your community.
Clint Mahlman
You know, it's our, our brand framework that I've referred to in front of everyone in the company talks about thriving on finding new ways of taking care of people, and to go above and beyond the expected. So, with that brand promises is are North Star we looked around, and in the first phase, the wave one of how can we support the community when they needed it most. So, we launched a number of initiatives like seniors hotline, special hours for seniors, we had special hours for first responders.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now.
Michael LeBlanc
Clint, welcome to the 200th episode of The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you?
Clint Mahlman
I'm great, Michael, thank you. And, I feel honored to be on the 200th episode. Congratulations.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, thank you. And listen, the honor is all mine. Actually, you were there when the whole idea of this podcast came to be. It was, we were sitting on a break from a Retail Council of Canada board meeting. And we're just chatting amongst ourselves around where to go to find information about the Canadian retail scene and, and a little light bulb went off in my head and, and here we are 200 episodes later. So, thanks again so much for joining me.
Clint Mahlman
No, it's my pleasure.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, let's, let's jump right in. Tell us about yourself. You and I have known each other for many years. I've had the pleasure of knowing you for quite a while but tell listeners about yourself your personal professional journey and what you do at London drugs.
Clint Mahlman
Sure. Well, I guess, retail has been described as the accidental career. And, I probably fit that mold perfectly. I started in 1984 as a part-time stock guy with London drugs while I was going to post-secondary school. I was, I really enjoyed my rugby, and I really enjoyed my beer. And, as a typical starving student, I needed to find alternate sources of income to pay the rent and enjoy those two hobbies. And, I really didn't have any desire to work in business for retail. I wanted to be a national parks warden rescuing people off the peaks in the Rocky Mountains. And, I still want to do that when I grow up. But at the time, there was a recession.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Clint Mahlman
In 1980s happening.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
And, I got some advice to get some managerial experience that they felt that the national parks warden service would be administering contracts, and very few people had management experience in that way. So, that's how I ended up doing that. And obviously, here I am all these years later as President of the company. And, I think it's been really helpful for me to see the company from virtually most positions. You know, grew up in the stores.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, literally.
Clint Mahlman
All the way through, all the, worked in HR, certainly operations. And, it's given me quite a wide variety of experiences.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, for those who may not live on the west coast, or for those around the world who don't know of London Drugs, tell us about London drugs. The concept, the store, you know, I think a quick visit to your homepage, or your website, any given day tells you you're more than a drugstore. You know, lots of interesting on the, I mean, it's electronics right now on the homepage. I was just checking it out. So, tell us all about it.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, we are and who is arguably one of the most unique retailers on the planet. So, linear drugs started in 1945 here in downtown Vancouver, by a pharmacist who had just returned from the Canadian Army. He was stationed in London during the war. And, of course, London was the big smoke, if you will, of the,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
Empire at that time. And, the name comes from being invoking power and sophistication. And, that's how the name came to be. And so, Mr. Bass started the company. And, you know, the uniqueness that he brought is still with us today. In 1947, he bought a camera store that was right next to the original store, which kind of started the trend of us having this unique mix, and (inaudible) in electronics. We've had a lot of firsts ever since then, you know, when Sony came to North America, we were one of the very first retailers in Canada to carry that brand. There was this new startup company out of Washington state with this product called a spreadsheet and they were one of the first to carry it. It's,
Michael LeBlanc
I hear that's, I hear that's popular now.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah. Well, it's been verified that Bill Gates himself came up, met the sales manager at that time way back then.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow.
Clint Mahlman
As one of the first retail computer companies at the time.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
And we're, you know, known for I guess fighting City Hall. We were the very first to offer discount prescriptions. We pushed hours to stay late, to open Sundays, had many battles across the west with trying to create an environment where it was easier for our customers to shop and give them what we want. And that DNA of being different. And, many people described us as a little quirky, that's where it all originated from.
In 1976, the Louis family purchased London Drugs, and a lot of our current expansion and success has come under their ownership and leadership. And so, today we remain family-owned western Canadian company under the parent company, which is celebrating its 100 and 18th year and our 75th year.
Michael LeBlanc
Oh, Fantastic.
Clint Mahlman
And, we believe our niche is a unique product mix under one roof that provides good value. As you stated, besides, you know, beauty, food, we have a treasure Isle, lots of housewares.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
We're very successful business in technology. And, we also have a belief of finding products that aren't normally carried at national retailers. And we augment that product mix with a lot of services. So, everything from vaccination clinics and, that are in healthy heart clinics, etc. in pharmacy, to technology repair, insurance devices, optical, doctors’ offices, and online services. So, a lot of that uniqueness all together is what people know us for.
Michael LeBlanc
I certainly find, you know, anytime I'm in, out west, I stop in. Because, I find it a fun store to shop. In other words, you, as you say the assortment is always fun and interesting. And, I always find something you know, unique and different when I'm walk, when I walk the aisles. So, from a store perspective, of course, your website great eCommerce website, an early pioneer and eCommerce stretches coast-to-coast. But your stores go as far as, far as Manitoba do they stop there? Is that how it goes?
Clint Mahlman
We go as far as, west is Manitoba. We are probably the highest concentration in British Columbia, then followed by Alberta, and Saskatchewan. And I guess that's what kind of the other thing that makes us unique. We're routinely ranked as one of the top drug chains in North America and it's certainly in the top 10, even though the we're just in western Canada and only have 80 stores. And we're up against these massive chains with 1000s of stores spread across either the US or Canada. So, it clearly speaks that our traffic count and volume per store it also makes us unique. And, we have many of our vendors tell us that our productivity per door for their product is the number one in North America. So, that's a bit of our, sort of, comes down to our uniqueness. Our service orientation, our eclectic nature and a lot of customers see us as their secret shopping find.
Michael LeBlanc
And, I was gonna say your role in the community too. You take an outsized role in the communities I find that you, that you play in. So, alright, let's, let's talk about (inaudible) current events. You know, you're no stranger to, as a retailer, as operators, you're no stranger to challenges. You know, I've spoken with Tony Hunt many times, a great loss prevention leader around things like dealing with things like the Vancouver riot. I mean, at a micro level, day-to-day operations, you know, retailers are used to crisis’s of one sort, nothing quite like the COVID era. When, if you take, if I take you back to this time last year, or even earlier, when did it dawn on you, when was that moment that you said, you know, this isn't going to be a small short term thing. This is going to change our operations for a long time? When, take me back to that moment.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, for sure. Because we import a lot of product from Asia, we were getting reports that really didn't match the seriousness that we were hearing in Canadian and American media. Our Asian factories, and agents over there, described what was going on was extremely serious. They could see that this was a different type of pandemic. Sometimes, in North America, we forget that parts of the world go through these pandemics much more frequently than we do.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
And, I think that's back in early January, where we really started to believe that this was different than what perhaps the media was tracking here in North America. We have a business continuity team that we tilt up whenever there's a potential of a disaster and we tilted that up (inaudible) in very early February to starting to do our planning. And of course, you know, the pandemic, no doubt, has tested all of our businesses and unique ways, and individual circumstances. And even with our business continuity, nothing could have prepared us for the for that.
We were very fortunate to be declared an essential business due to our unique blend of products with pharmacy, essential medicines, personal protective equipment, cleaning products, and the ability to sell technology that allow people to work from home, learn from home, at that time. And so, what we did is when we first realized that this was going to be a little bit different, and we quickly came together as an executive, and we challenged ourselves to simplify the issues that we were going to be facing. And the basic questions that we always ask whenever there's a threat to the business, what are my strengths? For us, we know we can move fast, and we know our communities that we serve, and that we're, we're considered local in many of those communities.
We asked ourselves, what are our key resources? For us, we realized that our resources were primarily stores. And we had a long strength in eCommerce, as you mentioned, and exceptional people. We'd also retool parts of our business in the last couple years, to help us be more capable. And those certainly came to play. And we also felt that because of our business continuity team in our, and our ability to work in a cross functional way, and we've managed many natural and community disasters.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Clint Mahlman
We knew we had an infrastructure we could rely on. We asked ourselves, what are my weaknesses? And for us, we knew it was our old systems. And, we have a lot of reliance, still, at that time, on manual processes, which was difficult to scale for volume. And of course, being a people-oriented service business, at a time when people don't want to spend much time with each other due to COVID, it's a bit of a challenge.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Clint Mahlman
We also ask ourselves, what is our core essence? What do we need to defend? You know, what's our alamo, if you will. And so, we turn to our brand framework, which is in front of everyone in the company. And, we really keyed in and reminded everyone that one of our statements is, 'We thrive on finding new ways to take care of people every day, and to go above and beyond the expected'. So, through this prioritization, everything was looked at through a lens of customer and staff safety. And, that is how we approach the business at that point.
Michael LeBlanc
So, you've been operating, I gotta say, pretty much every single day, right? Somewhere in Canada, you're open every, every day of the week of the COVID era. Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently? That you said, well, you, we would have approached something a little differently knowing what we know today?
Clint Mahlman
Well, I think it's Mike Tyson, isn't it? That's quoted as saying that ‘Everyone's got a plan until you get punched in the face’.
Michael LeBlanc
That's right, that's right.
Clint Mahlman
My son's a captain in the Canadian Army, and he talks about no plan ever survives the contact with the enemy.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Clint Mahlman
And, I think that when we reflect back what we would have done differently, it's always through a perfect lens. You know, I think one of the biggest things that we underestimated was the amount of chaos brought on by natural responses. It's not a criticism, but natural responses from government who were constantly shifting priorities, and obviously to remain open in the early week of the pandemic. We were on constant calls nationally, provincially, locally. At the same time, we were seen as a purchasing resource for the province in Ottawa. We were getting calls from Ministry of Trade and Innovation, from provincial health authorities, emergency management agencies asking if they, we could lend our expertise in importing, to acquire massive amounts of PPE. That was definitely something we we've done, of course, from time to time, but never in an emergency state like that.
And so, I think, knowing what we could have done differently, we had to figure out how to, how to deal with government procurement processes, which are much different than ours. And, this really swamped our time that we normally would devote to run the business. So, I think you know that, we've got many lessons which no doubt we can share with you. But, that that was one of the things we would have done differently, we probably would have tilted up, us a team just to deal with government procurement to dealing with the government chaos.
Michael LeBlanc
Really a whole, a whole other set of stakeholders. You're an active member of Retail Council of Canada, I remember those days and just trying to keep up with the changing, you know, the politicians just trying to keep everyone safe and react to the changing circumstances. It's a full-time job,
Clint Mahlman
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, both, both advising and, and responding. So, you know, looking, you know enough about looking back, let's, let's talk about looking ahead. There's been lots of discussion around acceleration. We've seen clear patterns of change from consumer behavior. I'm not sure which ones are gonna stick. It's been such an unusual time. What, how are you thinking about that in the context of, you know, your future operations and future strategies? Do you see any perceptible changes in consumer behavior or even the retail landscape that you say, you know what, this, this, this should change or adjust our plan in ways that we need to think about today?
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, there's, there's lots of things. I mean, first of all, I mean, we've got a lot of warning lessons right away from the pandemic. And, and just before I give you those warning lessons in how we, how we think that that'll play out in the future, the context of which we learn things, we are a 75 year old company full of legacy systems, with a DNA of wanting to stretch every last dime on every last investment.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
You know, our POS system is over 40 years old. Is an example.
Michael LeBlanc
40
Clint Mahlman
Yes,
Michael LeBlanc
Four zero.
Clint Mahlman
And our merchandising and warehouse system has over 35 years. We had,
Michael LeBlanc
You're like, you're like the Battlestar Galactica ship, right? If you know that series, the one-star ship, the one vehicle that survived the attack because it was still based on, based on old technology. You are like, we survived because we had no,
Clint Mahlman
Well, I think of any of your listeners that are family owned, or small businesses know better than us how to squeeze as much utility out of their investment. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
We've been working on business transformation for several years.
Michael LeBlanc
Sure.
Clint Mahlman
But that's one of our learning lessons. We also, you know, take into account that the background that we operate today as retailer, customers have unfair and unequal expectations. They want local companies to pay the freight for community support. They hold them to higher expectations to sponsor their local soccer team or hockey team. Even though, for example, we do business in one of the most expensive operating environments in North American, in British Columbia. Yet they don't have that same expectation of huge international companies like Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Wayfair, LA Express, you name them,
Michael LeBlanc
Why do you, why do you think that is? What do you think that cognitive dissonance is?
Clint Mahlman
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
You know,
Clint Mahlman
You know, it's, I think part of it is it's being when you can see your local retailer, and touch them and, and, and interact with them. It's a different feeling of someone being away. And, you know, I'll talk about that maybe a little bit later on, in the podcast. But, I just think you have to realize that the world's not fair as a retailer these days, you know. And, you could complain about it, you can lobby government, but you have to get on.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah.
Clint Mahlman
And I think that the, the other thing for the context of the learning lessons that I'm about to share is that our, our business model requires us to fund all capital investments from the current year's cash flow. And, that's both a strength and a challenge during the pandemic. We have no debt. We didn't drop into any sort of line of credit during the pandemic. And, we were watching a number of retailers drop around us that were in that. However, for one year, that's also the reason why we have 40 year old legacy systems.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
So, with that said, there's an old American baseball player by the name of Vernon Law that I love to quote, which I think his quote is, 'Experience is a hard teacher, because she gives you the test first and the lesson afterwards'.
Michael LeBlanc
Good one.
Clint Mahlman
The pandemic created the perfect concentrated experiment, or petri dish,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
That compressed time, volume and systems all at once and showed our, our flaws at the same time. So, some of the learning lessons, you know, from a leadership perspective, I ran out of time in the day to keep communicating, whether it was Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram Messenger, emails, phone calls, it was clear that people, staff needed more information. And they were scared, they were uncertain. They, they didn't know which information to trust. I also have owners to report to who, and so as a leader, I just underestimated the need for detail. Still today, to this day, I produce a twice a week communication response update to our staff. And, while I certainly never regret setting the bar high on communication and safety, you know, I'm still struggling to find ways to create enough time for that constant communication. So, that was a, that's been a real key lesson moving forward.
You know, I think to the point about our systems, you know, if you have a strength, you got to plan for scale and invest much quicker. You know, one of our things we realize is you can't necessarily plan for when, when scale is going to happen fast.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Clint Mahlman
And so, we have to do a more constant job of knowing our strengths and reinforcing them always. As I described, we really realized we relied too much on old systems and manual processes. And, well, that gives us great financial strength, it slowed our investment into infrastructure. And so, we're obviously addressing that now on a go forward basis, and making one of our largest investments in the company's history in new systems.
One of our strengths that we are reinforcing as a key lesson for us as well, is because we've always had a lot of alternate suppliers and unique products, we're known as being so called very sku heavy,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
With lots of breadth and depth of unique suppliers, especially small, unique brands. That paid off handsomely for us during the, the early stages of the pandemic and, and still today, when,
Michael LeBlanc
It gave you a variety of sources to supply from if one was,
Clint Mahlman
You got it Mike, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
If one was down, the other was up and, but, but does it, at the same time, it must have been introduced more complexity. Because I hear a lot of retailers going the opposite direction. Thinning out their vendors because they, they need to focus their supply chain.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, for sure. And well, I guess it's a style of business we've always believed in, in thinning out their supply chain. But what it showed is that the big brands could not deliver their products due to overwhelming demand. And so, for us, we had an alternative supplier base already that we could tap into. And, many of the smaller businesses could pivot and deliver and provide alternatives that the bigger brands couldn't. So, and, and the wonderful thing for us is the unintended consequences of introducing a lot of these small brands that weren't necessarily known, became the go to because it was the only thing available on the shelf. So that was great.
Michael LeBlanc
Tremendous amount of brand, a tremendous amount of brand switching, right has happened from consumers whether you know. I read a study something like 45% of consumers bought from a new retailer or a new brand, sometimes because they couldn't find what they were looking for. But other times, it was like this circuit breaker of behavior. I'm going to buy it where I can find it. I can see how that would really benefit someone with a wide variety of access to products and alternative products.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not to disrespect the seriousness and the consequences of this pandemic, but from a pure marketing point of view, marketers could never have a budget this large to create this amount of brand trial, whether that's as a retailer or as you said, a store brand. And, and there's been a lot of customers open up their eyes to all these alternatives, which is one of the lessons going forward. And, I think another lesson is that the supply chain is more fragile than we, we chose to believe. And, to this day, we're still dealing with product shortages and massive delays for im, from imports, either that the brand importing goods or our own direct imports that are caught up in ports around the world. So, lots of things to learn, that we were implementing in our business going forward.
Michael LeBlanc
And, I want to switch gears a little bit. We've talked, we've touched on eCommerce fair, at a very high level, and great eCommerce site. And I noticed this thing in the, in the paper last week, Kroger I think it was, was out with an announcement about some drone deliveries and they were pretty proud of that. And, then I, I actually responded back to Sucharita Kodali, who posted it, I said, 'Well, take a look at London Drugs because they did it back in 2019'. You know, you did some, some drone delivery already. For that, and just broaden the lens a little bit on, on delivery and infrastructure. Do you think there's a future for, for innovative delivery like that, whether it's drones or self-driving cars? Is that something that, that you think will solve some problems? Or is that so far in the distance that it's really not practical to even spend a whole lot of time on right now?
Clint Mahlman
No, I absolutely believe in it comes down to you know, our North Star about making customers lives more easy. We also have a saying internally about solving customers problems before they knew they had it. And, you know, I'll give you a personal story. I grew up in a small town on the BC coast, then small town, feels huge now called Gibson's, Gibson's Landing when I grew up there. And, you know, I watched my mom when she was dealing with cancer treatments. And, it would drive me absolutely crazy to watch my mom in her late 70s or 80s have to get up for very early for the first ferry in the morning. Take that ferry to go to a hospital in the North Shore of Vancouver to seen an oncologist for 10 to 15 minutes, to basically read out the results, she could have gotten over the phone or today on an iPad, and pick up her prescription that was only available at a hospital pharmacy because it was a cancer drug. Now, I personally don't think that added at all to better health outcomes. And it certainly taxed her strength when she was sick. So, to whose benefit was that? How did that solve our healthcare resource problem? And, it certainly wasn't to her benefit. And, I don't think it was very efficient use of government resources.
So, I think when I look at our business, and why I'm so passionate about this is, that's where I think areas like telehealth and drone delivery, would have saved the government a lot of money in that circumstance, and certainly would have made my mom's life much less complicated. And, I think when I look at stories like that, and we listen to our customers, that's what motivates us. Yes, we were the first retailer to test drone technology. The first to test out of line of sight technology, over water technology with our partner InDro Robotics and we continue to work with them to work through the morass of regulatory framework and approvals, and participate when they need us to for case studies. But, I think in Canada, we're a little bit longer away from that, just given the complexity of that. I do think some of the emergency healthcare needs will be, I know InDro was working on a test in Montreal for the movement of, of biologic products within the city. So, we're, we're excited about that.
We are in a non-disclosure phase of testing out another very sophisticated robotics solution for our stores and warehouse that could be an industry first, with an exciting local Vancouver based group. I wish I could tell you more, but we hope to be public. And we're working hard to, to reveal this in the coming months. And, that's directly result, result of what we saw during the pandemic, where people were really afraid to come to shop and come to work. And, how do we find solutions around that?
We're looking at highly automated autonomous technology in our warehouses. Another example for activities that really don't add a lot of value to the supply chain autonomous vehicles as an example. Yeah, we continue to test and learn and how we can use technology to improve our customers lives and make it less complicated. And that's where we see the best niche for technology.
Michael LeBlanc
I guess that's where you, you decide as a CEO, the difference between being a fast follower or leading and often the leaders at our, at any scale, take, take some hits on the balance sheet. So, you know where, where you play, though, that chip of leadership versus let's see if it works somewhere else, and then quickly adopted, right? I mean, that's.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, you're right. And, and we joke about our 40 year old point of sale system, but you know, our philosophy has been is, 'Nobody comes to learn and drugs because we have a modern POS system'.
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right.
Clint Mahlman
Right, that's not why
Michael LeBlanc
That's right.
Clint Mahlman
They're shopping.
Michael LeBlanc
That's right.
Clint Mahlman
Their experience is important. I'm not disregarding that,
Michael LeBlanc
Of course.
Clint Mahlman
But to solve problems, we've, we're like any company, and being, you know, a smaller company, we're not one of these Uber companies that can spend unlimited, or have access to capital from the market. So, we've got to be very disciplined in where we try and solve our customers problems.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, speaking of solving problems, you just launched a really interesting initiative called, 'Local Central' and we know our counterparts in the restaurant industry have just been, just been punished by the COVID era. And there may be some highs and lows in retail, but it's uniformly not great for the restaurant industry. So, tell me about Local, tell me about Local Central.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, thank you. I agree, the restaurant industry has been, is arguably the most impacted into this whole pandemic. Look, we were given a blessing to remain open as an essential retailer. And, we understood it's a privilege that many other companies didn't have. And that comes with an obligation when you're given that privilege. As we talked about, governments are overwhelmed and continue to be overwhelmed with managing the public health response. And, we've always felt that we have a moral obligation to provide leadership. We shouldn't rely on government solely for that leadership to take care of, and support our communities. And that's, that's baked into who we are. You know, as our, our brand framework that I've referred to in front of everyone in the company, talks about thriving on finding new ways of taking care of people and to go above and beyond the expected. So, with that brand promise is our north store, we looked around and in, in the first phase, the wave one of how can we support the community when they needed it most. So, we launched a number of initiatives like senior's hotline, special hours for seniors. We had special hours for first responders and frontline workers because many stores were closed when they got off their 12 hour shift in the hospital, or at the fire station. We stepped up to help the Girl Guides of Canada by selling their cookies for them when they were caught when they couldn't go door to door.
But one of the things we looked around in the neighborhoods is that so many small retailers and micro businesses were cut off from the marketplace due to closures like farmers markets, or they didn't have a web presence early in the pandemic. And, you know, as a business owner, we sure know what it's like to have your cash flow tapped and, and inventory stranded. So, it was our way of reaching out. And, it was really exciting because you know, it really allowed customers to rally to support those small businesses. We passed through 100% of, we just got the product on the shelf and returned their sales as is to them. We didn't, didn't take any profit whatsoever.
So, fast forward to the third wave of this pandemic. Once again, when restaurants were closed, or cobbled in some way, in most of the provinces, we took our learnings from that first wave. And in fact, many of our most successful products in that first wave of Local Central were restaurant items. Many examples of that, but there is a diner called, The Highlevel Diner', in Edmonton. And, they came to us wanting to sell their ketchup. You know, we don't know how popular restaurant based ketchup is. We sure learned it was one of the most successful items.
Michael LeBlanc
That's fantastic.
Clint Mahlman
And that rallying of local support to help them was just fantastic. So, you know, we've got about 16 different items listed right now, or 16 different companies, I should say, restaurant, in 62 stores. We've had about 50 different approaches, and we continue to look through a lot of the restaurant industry is extremely thankful for any help they can get. We're working through some of the regulatory issues of they don't have shelf ready, approved product. But, you know, we're lending our expertise to help them to know what, what would be approved. So, we're really excited about it. And, the side benefit is, it's given our staff a wonderful rallying point, they just love,
Michael LeBlanc
Oh nice,
Clint Mahlman
To see the support of the local community that they live in work in. And, it's, it feels good, it feels like the right thing to do.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, as you say, I mean, just as a listener you describe it just aligns to that North Star that you set in place, right, that you've got it, and you know, as a side benefit just an interesting, different product.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
It's kind of a win, win, win, right?
Clint Mahlman
Yeah, there, there's so many stories. But there's, in Maple Ridge, an entrepreneur called 'Big Feast Bistro', they were the first to hit our shelves. It's a vegetarian vegan based restaurant. He's had to close two of his three locations during, due to COVID, layoff 50 staff. He's doing everything they possibly can to survive. And we're super excited, in fact, it's only been in the store for I think three days now, and we're having to replace replenishment orders and, and selling out his product. And, it's just a real tribute to the entrepreneurial spirit that so many of these restauranteurs and the customers in those communities showing up to help.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right on All right. Well, last question, the very generous with your time as always, you know, as you look forward and think about the retail industry optimistic, pessimistic, realistic, where do you sit as you kind of broaden again, that lens and look at the entire retail industry? Is, as it starts, you know, we can see the end zone for the COVID crisis. The, you know, the goalposts seem to keep moving day to day, but we can at least see an end zone.
Clint Mahlman
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
How are you seeing? How are you seeing the industry moving forward?
Clint Mahlman
Well, I guess I've been accused of being an optimistic realist for most of my life. And anything that I can read or research tells me that we will have a fourth wave in Canada and it will be youth centric, and those that are unvaccinated. We're probably not going to achieve the dream of herd immunity like what we want, and it's likely going to result in a variant of concern emerging due to the lack of vaccine availability equality worldwide. So, that's I think that the environment we're going to be operating in for, for some time. I personally believe the first signs of truly returning to a new steady state of normal in Canada won't really happen until the late spring or summer of 2022.
I'm curious to see how we've learned from the pandemic. Many doctors such as the esteemed Ashish Jha, who is a Canadian, originally, the Dean of Brown University School of Public Health and Harvard University fame, are talking about the conditions are perfect for ongoing pandemics in place in the future. Due to a number of key factors. So, that I think we're going to have to prepare our businesses to live in this type of environment with much more frequency than we've ever seen before.
I'm also really excited to see customers questioning the status quo. As we referred to earlier, they're asking why are we not supporting local businesses more often? And we certainly learned why are we not making more things in Canada, more essential goods,
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Clint Mahlman
Whether it be producing our own vaccines. I certainly know that many, many years ago, I can remember talking to drug suppliers with the way that Canada and the provinces were managing the reimbursement to them were, would warn as they were closing factories in Montreal and Toronto saying, you know, Canada's losing its manufacturing capacity for essential medicines. And unfortunately, they proved to be right,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, press, prescient in that, right. I mean, you basically saved a few million, maybe a few 100 million and risk billions in the, in economic carnage, right. I mean, it's, I think you're right, there's some clear lessons around, you know, you can, you can optimize systems and processes and supply chains so much that they're inflexible, and they just break. And,
Clint Mahlman
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
I think we saw that,
Clint Mahlman
I think, I think I'm really curious to see what will settle in at both the governmental level and,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Clint Mahlman
Consumer level, that this drive to always have the lowest price, and realizing it comes at an enormous cost environmentally, and socially.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah.
Clint Mahlman
And, I think Canadian consumers are always smarter than us as retailers, and they're going to demand things to be different. And, all of us in retail will need to evolve. And, I'm hopeful that this trend of questioning the sourcing of goods and, and supporting local will become permanent.
So, I am optimistic. I think Canadians have learned a lot through the pandemic. And, their desire to connect socially as soon as they can, will drive a really positive bounce, bounce back over time. And so, our goal is to keep our staff our customers and community safe, and keep our eye focused on our brand promise our North Star and, and so I'm very optimistic for the future of retail in Canada.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, thanks again for, for sharing such great insights, such great contribution to right from your community, to the, to the industry, and to the broader context. And, and I wish you much continued success and innovation. Was great to hear the story. And once again, thanks for being on the show my 200th guests, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate. So thanks again, Clint for joining.
Clint Mahlman
Thank you very much, Michael, and congratulations on your 200th episode. It's fantastic. And for your ongoing support of highlighting so many great Canadian retailers and how important retail is to the fabric of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. And, if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.