OK Falls woman races for free groceries in 50 seconds

50-second race for groceries

An Okanagan Falls woman is a cart-load full of groceries richer thanks to her local grocer.

Leslie Follows piled $490.31 worth of food in her cart during the AG Foods Great Grocery Giveaway event, during which she had just 50 seconds to run around the store grabbing items.

"They came in a couple days before and kind of scoped out the way they were going to go," said Kyle Belich, store owner.

"I've had ones in the past that have come in and counted the square [tiles] to see how long it would take to get to the meat department, or get to the certain place that they wanted to go."

About 60 AG Foods stores participate in the grocery promotion in Western Canada each year. Shoppers apply through redeemed tickets and enter their pins online. AG Foods picks the winners.

Most of Follows' items were meat, which is typical of the giveaway since the food is a high-value item that can be frozen.

"It's a great little contest for a time of a year. After Christmas spending and you don't know how much you spent — you realize it in January," Belich said.

The business is slower during the winter season.

"[The contest] gets the community involved. When you see people that you know winning, it entices you to want to be involved more because it's, 'I know that person and they won, so I can win too.'"

Belich added this year saw 18,000 entries to the contest throughout the AG Foods network, which was 4,000 more than last year's 14,000.

So far, the biggest OK Falls haul was last year's winner Nadine Riddoch, whose husband raked in $503 worth of groceries.

The promotion has kicked off the new year each year since the family-owned business opened four years ago.

Photo: Belich's AG Foods Okanagan Falls

Leslie Follows won over $400 in groceries from Belich's AG Foods.