In Feb 2022, Moo Shu became a Living Wage employer, certified at the highest tier by the Ontario Living Wage Network. This decision came about after an honest and critical look at our company and at the precarious state of our industry. With raised ingredients & operating costs by necessity or circumstance, we have no choice but to raise prices.

We've hesitated in the past to raise prices so we don't price out our neighbours. With all the best intentions, we have inadvertently suppressed wages for fear of losing our place in the community. It's a scary thing to admit, but that's what's happening.

While the affordability issue is real, we realize that the solution cannot come at the expense of low-wage workers. Instead we are trialing two things. 1. A free "basic" cone option. We are now offering the regular cake cones that you see at almost every scoop shop so no one feels pressured to pay extra for a handmade waffle cone. 2. A suspended scoop program with the generous insight of our friends at Bread By US who have already had a similar program for years. Anyone can claim free scoops or pay scoops forward with no questions asked. Our scoop bank is already seeded with free scoops from recent donations and is ready to launch tomorrow.

Canadian Journalist, Corey Mintz lays out the case for raising prices in his book "The Next Supper" much more thoroughly than I could ever find the words to do it. There's more to the book than this so please read it, especially if you are feeling lost, unsure, or skeptical about the reckoning taking place in the food industry. Taking words from Amanda Cohen, chef & owner of Dirt Candy in NYC, quoted in the book, "The way we run our restaurants has left everybody vulnerable" We "don't want to participate in this system anymore."