April 22, 2020

The employees at Andy’s Affiliated Foods on the east side of Sioux Falls know their customers.

So Debra Nylen easily recognizes there are new faces that have appeared in the store in recent weeks.

“We’re getting a lot of people who aren’t regulars,” said Nylen, who has worked at Andy’s for two decades.

“I had one say, ‘We’re less likely to catch anything if we come here.’ Most people are courteous, and our regulars still come in.”

As consumers consider avoiding larger grocers for the crowds and demand for sought-after merchandise, they’re seeking out smaller ones.

“We’re constantly disinfecting and cleaning and wiping and wearing gloves,” Nylen said.

At Andy’s, soup is low, and “we’re still doing good on meat,” she said. “We’re hit-or-miss on toilet paper. We’ve been getting it weekly, a few cases, but as soon as it’s here, it’s gone.”

The store isn’t set up for a widespread carryout and delivery service, but it’s taking care of regulars who can’t safely leave their homes.

“We have to take care of them first,” Nylen said. “We have one guy that delivers. They have no way of coming to the store.”

She has one request for shoppers: “What grocery stores would really appreciate is everyone wearing a mask when they come in,” she said. “We’re wearing them for hours at a time, and it sure would be nice if people were coming in wearing a mask. Most people are but not everybody. It hasn’t gotten there yet.”

At Fareway’s store at 41st Street and Sycamore Avenue, the crowds have been manageable, general manager Jamie Riesberg said.

From 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday through Saturday is reserved for high-risk customers and those older than 65.

Inventory is “kind of hit-or-miss,” he said. “Right now, we’re really struggling to get a lot of the soups in because they’re just not there. Flour and yeast is getting kind of scarce, bagged rice, and toilet paper and paper towels and hand sanitizer.”

Fareway’s Iowa-based headquarters teamed up with a distillery there to produce sanitizer, “so we’ve had a lot more, but it’s going out about as fast as I’m putting it out,” Riesberg said. “Some days I get 10 cases, and some days I get zero.”

Overall, sales are up, but the customer count is going down, he said.

“That tells me people are having bigger baskets and coming to the store less,” he said, adding he’s trying to keep his employees from becoming overworked.

“My full-time employees, I’m trying to get an extra day off here and there and get a vacation taken if they’re stressed out, and trying to keep them as healthy as possible.”

Fareway still offers its signature carryout service to take groceries to customers’ cars, but a lot of customers have opted to do it themselves, he said.

“If we do take them, our carryouts have been trained to keep a safe distance between them and the customer as much as possible.”

Sunshine Foods in downtown Sioux Falls has added a half-dozen part-time employees to keep up with additional sanitizing of high-touch areas, stocking shelves, and picking and delivering orders.

Every shopping cart is cleaned before it goes back into service, said Ronda Bartscher, who has worked at the grocery store for 21 years and wears “100 different hats,” including human resources and bookkeeping. PIN pads at the check stands are cleaned between customers, and the store gets a deep cleaning overnight, she said.

The hours haven’t changed. Sunshine is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, but the store has reserved shopping from 6 to 8 a.m. Saturday for the elderly, the immune-compromised and health care workers.

Online ordering has picked up since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bartscher said. Sunshine has its own delivery drivers, and shoppers have the option for curbside pickup.

The store continues to have purchase limits on scarce items such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer and yeast.

“We’re pretty much having the out-of-stock issues that everyone is having,” Bartscher said. “Our customers have been very understanding.”

At Franklin Food Market, owner Ted Haggar still feels the sting of social media posts in early March accusing the store of price gouging.

“People were saying that it was appalling. They don’t know how it works. The fact of being accused of that, I responded that we have been here for 71 years because of responsible practices,” said Haggar, whose grandfather started the store on North Cliff Avenue in the Whittier neighborhood in 1949.

In recent weeks, he started closing the store at 7 p.m.

“People are getting drained. We did a lot of business, and we still are doing a lot of business. The first two to three weeks, we doubled,” he said of sales. “Now, we’re up 30 percent to 40 percent.”

Employees are working long days to keep up with the crush.

“One girl put in 75 hours in a week. She’s tired. We’re all going home tired.”

He hopes the community comes through the crisis with a greater appreciation for grocery store workers.

“They’re providing a service to the community along with a lot of other people.”