Lower Mainland food group organizes massive bagel order from Montreal

@stviateurbagel/Instagram

How far would you be willing to go for a really good Montreal bagel?

For one group of Metro Vancouverites, ordering a mass shipment right from the source is not out of the question.

It all started with a Facebook group dedicated to food in the Lower Mainland. Lower Mainland Eats (LME) was started by Isa Gaia, and the group now has over 20,000 members who share their love of food, restaurants, and everything in between.

Gaia tells Dished that she started the LME group back in July 2021 as a way to support and celebrate all the local businesses that had been struggling as a result of the pandemic. Since then, thousands of posts have been made in the group, which is public, all made by “people who enjoyed great food and wanted to have discussion around the best places to eat in the lower mainland.”

Fast forward to now, and Gaia says she did something that she “didn’t think through completely” – she asked the group if they wanted to go in with her on an order of St-Viateur Bagels from Montreal.

“I had the delight of trying St-Viateur Bagels back in 2021 and thought they were unique compared to any other bagel I have ever had. My whole family loved them,” Gaia says. “The problem is that shipping a couple dozen bagels from Montreal to Vancouver is very expensive and even more now than it was two years ago.”

Turns out a lot of people felt the same way about the iconic bagels – even we have dished on our love of the doughy round before – as over 4oo people commented on the post.

stviateurbagel/Instagram

“I quickly knew that I would need to start a separate FB Group to try to figure this out,” Gaia says, and as a result, she started a group dedicated to organizing the massive order.

This resulted in a group of 30 volunteers – which includes community members who work in high-level management positions, project management, and logistics – as well as “two businesses, two delivery drivers and 12 private residences that have volunteered to be community pickup points.”

Once that end of things was taken care of, Gaia says, she began negotiating with someone from St-Viateur Bagels to arrange the order – an endeavour that took nearly a month – as well as a freight company that might be willing to take on the massive bagel order.

St-Viateur Bagel

“We finally landed on a remarkable all-inclusive price of $20 for a dozen bagels (plain, sesame and poppy) and $22.50 for premium (cinnamon raisin, all-dressed and rosemary salt),” Gaia explains.

“That’s only around $5 more than what you would pay at their doorstep and ours are being flown across country on a same-day service. This means that we should have them in our homes within 24 hours of the time they leave St-Viateur.”

The bagel event, as the delivery day has come to be known, is taking place on September 20 when the St-Viateur shipment will be dropped off in three zones (Vancouver, Port Coquitlam, and Langley). Volunteers will then pick up the bagels and redistribute them via micro-pickup points throughout the entire Lower Mainland.

“A massive logistical undertaking since all pickups must happen that same day!”

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Gaia adds that Nick from St-Viateur “has been a pleasure to deal with; he has been calm, resourceful, pleasant and understanding.” He also promised to send T-shirts and other swag for the big bagel day, she says.

Almost 5,000 bagels will be flown in that day, with some folks ordering up to four dozen for themselves and their family, as the bagels “freeze really well and last upwards of a month in the freezer.”

Volunteers and organizers aren’t making any money off the event, Gaia says – ” It’s all for the community.”

Now that is what we call dedication to hunting down the perfect bagel.