As we do each year, Food Trade News asked some local retailers to discuss the way they address Hispanic Heritage Month in their stores. This year we are focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on these retailers’ operations. Our panelists are Jim Bottino, president of Bottino’s ShopRites, and Ivan Bueno, director of marketing for Marketplace of Bushwick, a Key Food member.
Our questions:
- How has COVID-19 impacted the availability of products for your store, especially Hispanic and Latino products? Have you had to utilize different suppliers to get the products you need? Will this impact your normal Hispanic Heritage month offerings?
- How have you adapted your stores, and/or product offerings, during the crisis to address the needs of your customers and workers?
- How do you communicate with your customers about the situation the pandemic has caused – i.e., product shortages, price increases, safety procedures and protocols?
- Have you seen changes in your online ordering and home delivery service during the past few months? Please explain.
Jim Bottino- Bottino’s ShopRites
- As was typical with many of our product categories, COVID-19 had an impact on the availability of our Hispanic offerings, especially at the start of the pandemic earlier this year. As a result of the crisis, consumer demand across this category has increased and demand for some products has more than doubled. We are continually working with our vendors and sourcing new suppliers to best meet the needs of our consumers and intend to preserve our Hispanic Heritage month program as it is important to many of those who shop in our stores. All of our work over the last six months has helped prepare us for the future. There have been numerous changes to how we operate and how people shop, but our goal is always to provide the best possible shopping experience for our customers.
- When the pandemic began earlier this year, we worked quickly to adapt and make changes during an unprecedented moment for retail. We hired more staff, expanded our warehouse capabilities, implemented many safety measures across all our stores and worked closely with suppliers to keep our stores stocked. We experienced increased demand across many product categories during the height of the pandemic, when people were staying home and cooking more at home. Items such as paper and cleaning supplies, fresh meat, and poultry were in great demand and we worked closely with our partners to make sure we had those products and became as innovative as possible. For example, we were able to purchase meat from our suppliers that was originally packaged for restaurant use. Our skilled ShopRite butchers were then able to cut and package that meat for retail sale at our stores. We also put temporary limits on some products to make sure all our shoppers could get what they needed. Today the supply chain has adapted and the pressure on categories for these critical supplies has eased greatly and there are very few limits left on product. All of our work and planning over the last six months has helped prepare us for the future, and we continue to be hyper-focused on safety, sanitation and social distancing measures in our stores.
- We pride ourselves on our transparency efforts and have used all our platforms to communicate with our shoppers including our website, digital, social media, and both traditional and online advertising and marketing.
- The consumer is definitely relying more on online offerings and our digital platforms such as ShopRite From Home to get the items they need. We have seen a dramatic increase in the use of these services especially when most businesses were closed and stay-at-home orders in place. Demand remains high and we continue to work on new and innovative ways to build capacity.
Ivan Bueno – Marketplace of Bushwick
- COVID-19 has affected the whole food industry in regards to supply. We experienced a lot of shortages initially when the pandemic first struck, but our stock has been pretty consistent now. Similarly, our Hispanic and Latino suppliers were struggling with supply issues in the beginning of this outbreak, but have also been able to rebound with a steady supply of product. The shortages that we encountered forced us to look for alternate supply sources, which were very helpful for us in keeping product on our shelves. We have kept several of them engaged with our business.
- Any adaption that we had mostly came in the form of product quantity limitations. Even when we were able to keep a good amount of inventory on hand, we still enforced a purchase limit on certain items, (toilet paper, paper goods, etc.) to ensure all of our customers had an opportunity to get what they needed.
- We are more like a Pom & Pop store than a conventional large supermarket. Nonetheless, we have been in business for 20 years and our customers understood what the pandemic was and were very patient and understanding with us. They were able to see us constantly cleaning and sanitizing all areas of our store. We utilized store signage and floor decals to help educate and inform our shoppers while they were in the store. We would explain to our customers about product shortages, and would steer them to alternate choices and substitutions for some of their regular and favorite brands. We were fortunate that being a “neighborhood store,” everyone understood what was happening and it actually afforded us the opportunity to become even closer with our community.
- As a small neighborhood store, we do not offer online ordering. However, we noticed an unusual result of the pandemic. We have seen and gained more new customers than ever before. Being in a densely populated urban area, the majority of our customers all come from foot traffic in our local area. We found that our regular customers wanted to come into the store, especially to see what products were available and be able to bring them back to their homes. But additionally, there have been a significant amount of new faces coming in and returning to our store for repeat shopping trips which we believe will translate into long term customers.