MEETING THE CHALLENGE The Inside Story of What It Took to Keep the Gulf Coast Fed During the Pandemic In early March, grocery stores across the country met unprecedented demand as the United States
began sheltering in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This was, for most of us, our first global pandemic, so nobody was quite sure what we needed to get and what we didn’t. Many of us ended up buying a little bit of everything, just in case. As customers rushed stores, Rouses Markets fared far better than national grocery chains because it is a local company with local relationships, and because the Gulf South is no stranger to natural disasters.
The Rouses response gives us an interesting look at how grocery stores work behind the scenes and, in
particular, how local markets support their neighbors in times of crisis. To find out more, I reached out to
some of the Rouses leadership team to see how they helped steer communities through the worst of the storm.
The Start The first identified case of COVID-19 presented in the United States on January 20, 2020. It had been identified weeks earlier in China and was noted for its high transmission rates and severity of symptoms. By the end of the month, there were just under 10,000 cases reported around the world. Early on, corporate management at Rouses had an eye on how the coronavirus was spreading, in part because so many of its private label products — such as olive oil and coconut water — are imported from global suppliers. Also, by watching how other regions responded to the crisis, Rouses could better calibrate its own response. “We all have colleagues we stay in touch with at other retailers,” says Jason Martinolich, the vice president of natural and specialty foods for Rouses Markets. “We were hearing from people where it all started in Washington and then California, and we really got a good grasp of things. They were basically two weeks ahead of us, so we had an idea of what was happening from a standpoint of what people were buying and what stores were running out of. We stayed in contact with our manufacturers, sharing that insight with them, and also working with our distributors to make sure that they were understanding what we were hearing.” The general idea was that, if the virus made its way to the Deep South, Rouses would be able to keep its shelves stocked. Because the company does a lot of importing from Italy, and because Italy was hit hard by the virus, the company was also able to gauge what a pandemic would look like if it arrived in our region. “We were talking to our partners there to understand the things that they did to make sure that manufacturing continued, and to learn how they were protecting their employees from contracting the virus,” Jason says. Because Rouses is local to the turbulent Gulf Coast, it has cultivated practical experience in crisis management over the years. “We prepare for emergencies like hurricanes, so we know the basic essentials that people need in a time of crisis. Of course, we had no idea what social distancing was, or sheltering in place, or any of that at the time!” says Tim Acosta, director of advertising & marketing for Rouses Markets. “When the government started talking about halting
10 J U N E 20 20
“Serving our community is what Rouses was founded on. Our team and our neighbors count on us to provide a safe, clean store stocked with great food and household items. We take that commitment seriously. It’s not about doing something new during this pandemic — it’s about doing what Rouses always does, in new circumstances.” — Ali Rouse Royster, 3rd Generation the airlines coming in from Europe and all that, it started getting crazy late that first night, a Wednesday. That Thursday was very busy. And then on Friday, when the governor said the schools were closing, that’s when pandemonium broke out. It was the second weekend in March. People were just buying everything they could get because they thought, you know — well, I don’t know what they thought — that’s when the toilet paper thing started.” Donny Rouse, the third-generation chief executive officer of Rouses, says that when those sales started increasing on Friday, March 13, he knew that life was about to change. “Everything went crazy,” he says. “And we knew this was completely different than what we’ve ever seen with any other type of disaster, whether flooding or hurricane or such. We were hoping it wasn’t going to come down to Louisiana, but we were preparing for that eventuality.” One of the first things Rouses did, says Tim, was go on modified hours of operations. “That is something that we learned from storms. So instead of being open 7 a.m. until 10 or 11 at night, we started closing at eight o’clock at night. This was right after the first week, and that gave a lot of relief to the team members working in the stores. It allowed the stores extra time to get cleaned and sanitized and restocked after that day’s business, and ready overall for the next day.”
