Roy’s Market owner Peter Robinson said operating a small town market during the Ice Storm in December of 2008 prepared him for the coronavirus pandemic.
“Having lived through the ice storm we kind of went into disaster mode right away,” Robinson said of the early stages of COVID-19.
The next question was “what do we need to do and how fast do we need to do it,” he said. Then it was a matter of identifying and addressing any potential weak points.
With an emphasis on home cooked meals as people adhered to stay at home guidelines set by Gov. Chris Sununu, and limited options when it comes to restaurants with some only offering takeout and others limited outdoor dining, the demand on local food suppliers has been high since mid-March.
Almost immediately, Robinson began calling his suppliers to make sure there was enough product coming into the store to meet the increased needs.
“The fact that we’re independent we can buy from multiple suppliers,” Robinson said. “If suppliers didn’t have what we needed, we could go to a second or third option.”
Robinson said he massively increased his orders to keep pace. Discussions with suppliers included what they saw for the future and where some limitations might be. He began doing pre-buys to get his orders in ahead of time in an effort to make sure what he needed was available.
“We are just being more aggressive with our ordering,” he said.
Marcia Coffin, who owns the Hancock Market with her husband Jarvis, said certain items, most notably disinfecting supplies, are hard to come by, but everyone is in the same boat. But for the most part, there have been no issues with stocking the shelves.
“There have been ways to jigsaw puzzle our sources together,” she said.
She said they get orders in almost every day, which is a big increase from what used to be a couple days a week.
Barbara Kalioras, owner of Sonny’s Market in New Ipswich, said at first it was toilet paper, yeast and flour that were hard to come by – and now it’s meat.
“We just try to get whatever we can and it’s still next to impossible,” she said.
Jess Weeks, manager of the Harvester Market in Greenfield, said for the most part the shelves have been stocked and haven’t run into many issues with ordering. They just have to do a little more of it these days.
Robinson said he has seen dramatic increases in the cost of products, but has not passed that on to the customers except for a few small adjustments in pricing.
“We’re all suffering through this and to take advantage of that would be criminal,” he said.
And of course there are times when the order he placed isn’t the same one that comes in the back door.
“I’m placing an order and I’m getting a third of what I ordered,” he said.
While toilet paper was difficult to find at first, Robinson said the demand has dropped off and now the item most sought after is meat. So far, Robinson said he has been able to keep up with it, but has seen dramatic increases in meat prices.
Despite the increase in ordering, Robinson hasn’t seen an issue with storage.
“Generally we’re moving things fast enough,” he said.
Coffin said the Hancock Market has always put an emphasis on its meat supply and quality and that continues despite reports of shortages.
“We have been spared some of the problems that larger stores have,” she said.
What has seen a big increase is the prepared foods line the Hancock Market offers.
Weeks said there has been supply issues with certain items at different times during the pandemic, like yeast and flour, hand sanitizer and whole chickens.
“But everyone is having that problem,” she said. “When it’s more specialized it can become more challenging.”
She said the demand for meat is high and so far, outside of a few hiccups, they’ve been able to keep the meat case stocked. Weeks said things like orange juice, eggs and milk have been selling quickly.
Kalioras said there has been quite the demand on the store that opened in late March, after the pandemic had already changed the way life was conducted in the state. She said its been hard to keep up, but they’re doing the best they can. Within the first week of opening, one distributor upped their delivery from once a week to twice.
Robinson said he has seen a lot of customers take advantage of the online ordering system put into place. Some of the orders are marked for curbside pickup, while others are using the delivery system established at an extra cost of $5.
“We found some young people who are willing to do deliveries,” Robinson said. The added fee is to reimburse the drivers.
“I’m probably seeing a little less of people coming in,” he said. “But we’re more than making up for that with curbside and deliveries.”
People are still going into the store, but Robinson has seen a shift away from daily shoppers and people buying more at one time.
Kaloiras said that it’s hard to know if people are shopping in a different manner than pre-coronavirus.
“I don’t have anything to compare it to,” she said. “But I have people that come in every other day or every day.”
Coffin said the market began offering curbside pickup and delivery around Hancock, which both have been popular. And she also seen a difference in the way people shop.
“We definitely see our customers come in and do a much bigger shop,” she said. “Now people are planning ahead and making fewer trips.” She said the customer base has increased since the start of COVID-19.
Weeks said that people are seeing the Harvester as more of a grocery store than in the past.
“More people are using shopping carts now,” she said. “And people have shopping lists, where we didn’t see much of that before.”
She hopes people will look to them for more of their weekly shopping in the future as well. They now offer curbside pickup, but it’s not that busy with somewhere from five to eight a day.
Coffin said the store has limited the number of shoppers who can be in the building to two at a time.
“It feels and is much safer for people to come into our store,” she said. “It helps regulate the traffic.”
At certain times of the day it can lead to people waiting outside, but Coffin said if it is a regular or someone only needing a few items they will do an on the fly curbside order.
Kalioras said they wipe down doors, registers and credit card machines every hour and each carriage is sanitized after use.
“But I don’t want to say it’s more work because my standards have always been high,” she said.
Since May 1, every employee at Sonny’s Market has been required to wear a mask.
“We’re exposed to so many people so it’s for our customers safety,” Kalioras said. Some employees who had been hired decided to step away due to concerns of working with the public, she said, and hours have been reduced slightly than what they originally planned for.
Robinson said they put tape down on the floors to create six foot social distancing and employees now all wear masks and gloves.
They have reduced hours slightly (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday) to keep up with cleaning practices, as well as to allow employees to fill curbside and delivery orders before opening to the public to avoid more people in the aisles as much as possible. He also made the decision to close on Sundays to give all his employees a day off, as well as close Little Roy’s.
“We have too much social contact with people,” Robinson said of Little Roy’s. “So we decided it would be best to close that operation down. For everybody’s benefit that was the best thing to do.”
Weeks said all employees wear masks and shopping carts and baskets are disinfected before being put back into circulation.
“At the end of the night we’ve always cleaned before we leave,” she said.
Masks are not required to enter the store, but they do have an area at the front door with masks people can use. Weeks estimates about 70 percent of people wear masks when in Harvester.
She said they have tape marking six foot distances for checkout and that the size of the parking lot keeps the numbers in the store at a comfortable number.
“Looking into the summer months, that may change,” Weeks said.
Coffin said they instituted an hourly disinfecting regimen and are asking customers to wear masks when in the market, even providing masks by the door for those who don’t have one.
“Just out of an abundance of caution for our employees and the families they’re going home to,” Coffin said. For the most part the mask requirement has been a non-issue, although there are some that don’t want to be told to wear one.
Coffin said that March and April are typically a quiet time of year, but that was not the case this year. She said the employees have really stepped up.
“We’ve been asking a lot of our staff and they’ve been great,” she said.
She hopes this will remind people the importance of shopping locally.
“We’ve very hopeful that people develop a shop local habit that goes beyond the current circumstances,” Coffin said.
Weeks said that business is definitely up, trending more toward the way it is during the summer months when campers flock to Greenfield State Park.
In the beginning, the prepared food side slowed way down, Weeks said, “but in the last couple weeks its gone back to normal.”
While it’s busy, Weeks said the goal is to “try to get them in and get them out.”
Kalioras said business has been good and that from 8 to 9 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays shoppers 60 and over can come in for that hour.
She has gotten positive feedback about the new market, but is interested to see what it will be like once restrictions have been lifted and life trends back toward what it used to be.
“Our customers are happy and that’s what we’re basing it on,” Kalioras said.
Robinson said business has been consistently busy and anticipates it being that way for the foreseeable future. And with that, he has a message for everyone involved
“I can’t thank the staff and the customers enough,” he said.