The Old Farm Market — Local services in Area D (Cowichan Bay)

I have been a loyal out of town customer for over 20 years however I only went there when I was in the area for something else. Now I am going weekly to buy the majority of my fruit and vegetables.

The quality of your produce is outstanding. My partner has also shopped there but until recently he didn’t realize how much better the quality is and how much lower the pricing is compared to the chain grocery stores.

We also enjoy your in house baked breads and deli offerings.

Recently we were there to provision our larder and observed the fellow putting out fruit. He was so careful with each piece to inspect for bruises or damage and if he saw anything, it did not get put out for sale but rather it was placed I a box aside.

Your pricing makes it worth my while to travel from Ladysmith almost weekly to pick up all of my produce.

Examples from my local store of why I am now traveling to Duncan is the celery is broken, bruised and scraped. All of the potatoes in a 5 lbs. bag are bruised and leaf lettuce rots from the middle. These are not things I experience at your store and I soooo appreciate it! Then there is your pricing. I save $2.00 on celery, $1.00 on green onions, $2.00 on a 3 lb. bag of onions, $3.00 on a loaf of in store bread and so on it goes. It pays me to travel to Duncan to buy my produce for your pricing not to mention how much less spoilage I have.

On top of all of this, your staff are lovely, patient and kind. I can honestly say I have never had a bad experience nor abnormal spoilage. Thank you, by shopping at your store my finite dollars go further and...

Hopefully management will read this! I DO love this store. It has an amazing selection. HOWEVER, they desperately need to develop a better system for their cashiers. I have a lot of experience with cashiering and specifically with the system they use. I know its quirks... but the way they have it set up is a bit inefficient. I feel bad for the cashiers. When they need to void an item (I'm assuming that is what's happening, it's happened twice while I've been shopping there) a supervisor or someone with authority needs to come and authorize it. Where this is probably fine in a normal situation... it isnt working for them. They dont have a proper communication set up with the other staff so they can request help faster. They have these bells that need to be rung to get the other staffs attention. Unfortunately it's not loud enough to hear in the back room obviously because both times I've been there when this happens it takes at least 5 minutes for them to get up to the cashier... when you have a line up, 5 mins is a long time. I love this store!! Dont get me wrong. I will absolutely keep shopping here despite the issues.... but management seriously needs to find a more efficient way for staff to communicate in the store other than the farm bells that don't seem to be loud enough. I would suggest an intercom or some kind of radio. I bet it would make a world of a difference to...

This review is for breakfast at the Duncan Old Farm Market. The produce has always been great, heard all the hoopla about how breakfast was now being served so decided to try it out this morning. Epic fail as far as I was concerned. My husband enjoyed his bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, although the "restaurant" (in the case of the Duncan location this looks like a repurposed storage room, no heat, freezing cold) was so cold he chose to wait in the car and eat there. I upset the apple cart by ordering a side of bacon, an order of toast and a hashbrown, which was apparently unheard of. To give the ladies credit they found a way to make it work and get the order into the register. My impression is that management decided to open a restaurant without providing the needed infrastructure or training. The workers were used to providing deli sandwiches and offerings and were thrust into the role of running a restaurant. Not fair to them. I waited over 20 minutes, saw someone who had come in after us get served and went up to the til for a refund when our food came out. I love bacon as much as the next person but this was a weird, sweet (not in a good way) flavour, the hashbrown was limp and also weird tasting and the toast was under-toasted and slathered with margerine. Won't be eating breakfast...