Specialty food retailers are bolstering their delivery and curbside pickup capabilities as concerns about the coronavirus have spread across the country.
“We basically flipped our business model in 24 hours,” Erin Lynch, director of operations at Portland, Maine-based Rosemont Market and Bakery, told Specialty Food News.
The retailer last week shuttered all six of its stores and switched to a delivery and curbside pickup model instead after employees became concerned about customers spreading the disease inside its stores.
“We are in it for the long haul,” said Lynch. “We’ve got to keep everybody healthy, and keep everyone employed so we can all make it through this.”
She said the retailer has been working closely with its network of local suppliers to ensure that it can fulfill customer orders. Many local farmers have plenty of inventory after losing their restaurant and university foodservice accounts in the pandemic.
“We have a really strong supply chain right now, because we work with a lot of local producers, and some smaller local makers,” said Lynch. “Maine has an extraordinary local farm system, we have a lot farmers growing greens through the winter, and we have farmers storing things like apples and root vegetables.”
Consumers, having stocked up on shelf-stable items such as pasta and beans early on, have since switched to buying perishables, she said, adding Rosemont is selling as much as a week’s worth of produce in a day.
The retailer has been promoting its local offerings to help drive support for these small businesses. For example, it has reduced its cheese assortment to focus on products from local cheese makers.
Lynch said the company has also enjoyed the support of its larger suppliers, who have been going out of their way to ensure the retailer has enough inventory.
In order to fulfill demand for delivery, the company is partnering with local delivery company F.B. Goodwin, which delivers the retailer’s bakery products to restaurants and other stores. That company, too, switched its model, focusing on home delivery to the greater Portland area. Orders placed online are channeled to the retailer’s central store, where store employees pick them and prepare them for delivery.
Curbside pickup has been the most popular options, however, Lynch said.
“Curbside pickup has been extremely successful,” she said. “Customers are very appreciative that they can get the same quality of products from Rosemont Market without exposing themselves to the public by entering our stores.”
Home grocery delivery is not as widespread generally in Maine, Lynch said, although that aspect of the business is gaining traction.
“We are just warming people up to the idea, but the feedback we have received has been amazing,” she said. “People are in love with the service.
“I think even after we get thorough this pandemic, these are going to be shopping options that we continue to offer.”
Across the country retailers are seeing more demand for delivery and curbside pickup. Research from sales and marketing firm Acosta shows that in the four weeks ending March 12, consumers increased their click-and-collect grocery ordering by 25 percent, and several regions have since imposed “stay at home” orders since that time.
In San Francisco, specialty retailer Luke’s Local was seeing such strong demand for delivery last week that it began prioritizing orders for those who were homebound, and encouraging those who were not to continue shopping in the store.
The retailer, which had historically operated with a single employee making home deliveries, is in the process of ramping up its delivery capacity, said Caroline Bonham, customer experience associate at Luke’s Local, in an interview with Specialty Food News. The company has seen nearly all its delivery slots filled for more than a week.
“It has been getting a little overwhelming,” she said. “We are hoping to expand the number of orders we can get out each day about three times the number we have been able to do before.”
Customers appear to have eased off on their pantry stocking, however, Lynch said, after an initial surge.
Meanwhile San Francisco-based Snacks N Chill, a subscription service offering home delivery of better-for-you snack foods, last week added same-day delivery of its boxes to meet local demand in the city, which is under a stay-at-home order.
Without much promotion, the start-up already had a “few dozen” deliveries in just the first 72 hours, said Nick Chen, co-founder.
The increase is same-day sales at Snacks N Chill is helping offset declines at its sister company, Welcome Box, which offers boxes of snacks and other products for Air BNB hosts to provide to their guests.
“That business has gone in the opposite direction,” said Chen.
Related: States Make Temporary Changes to Alcohol Delivery Laws; Demand for Grocery Delivery Increases Amid Coronavirus Outbreak.
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