Bargain Grocery Sustains Communities in Empire State

Bargain Grocery is a food retailer with a purpose — in fact multiple purposes — and an example of how the idea of sustainability is becoming broader and more interrelated with other social issues.

The operation arises from an idea of Mike Servello’s when he was pastor of the Redeemer Church, in Utica, NY. With a family connection to the produce distribution business, Servello recognized that he could  fund the charitable foundation he was operating, Compassion Coalition, on food sales in a part of the city that was lacking in supermarkets. Small stores selling food were around but expensive for the large lower-income and refugee community in the town. About 30% of Utica’s population lives beneath the poverty line, and major supermarkets tend to be outlying and, so, not necessarily where the people who have the greatest need for inexpensive food live.

When he first came up with the idea, Servello didn’t yet know he was in a food desert, or even what a food desert was, but when officials started encouraging him to expand the food operation he launched in the Compassion Coalition distribution center, he managed to get funding and open Bargain Grocery, which now is a model that has gained the interest of municipal and state agencies in New York state, and one that’s soon to be repeated.

What Others Don’t Want

In its operations, Bargain Grocery acquires food that might otherwise wind up as waste. In that way, it keeps all of the environmental inputs that go into the food, from fertilizer to transportation to refrigeration, from going to waste at a time when more people are becoming aware that something like 30% of food produced is trashed. Although food banks absorb a proportion of food waste in big cities, such operations are rarer and less sophisticated in small cities and rural areas, and often can’t handle perishables consistently, given that they’re generally not open every day, Servello notes. Bargain Grocery, in contrast, is open every day and sells lots of perishables acquired by various means.

As it has become a bigger food retailer, Bargain Grocery has had to scramble to find new sources of inexpensive food products. The company has worked with Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart and, when it was an independent company, Jet.com (later a subsidiary of Walmart, and now discontinued), to acquire products that might otherwise have been thrown away, selecting and merchandising the best of what remains to sell at low prices. As such, Bargain Grocery is working to sustain the community as well as the environment, which is consistent with the larger sense of wellness that’s emerging in the United States, one that sees the environment, personal health and community well-being as being tightly tied together.

As it operates today, Bargain Grocery is a full-blown grocery store operation with attractive produce displays at its core. In addition to other sources, the company gets produce directly from growers, striking the best deals it can and trucking the goods back to Utica from as far away as Arizona and Florida, often in its own trucks. With freight rates being what they are today, and the difficulty of arranging mixed loads, it’s an economical way to go, but finding truckers is tough, and Servello’s nephew often takes up long-haul duties.

The company works with just about any retail, manufacturing, growing or other source, such as liquidators, to get product, and it will apply a bit of tender loving care to get product that remains good quality, even if a bit dented, in front of shoppers.

“We’ll take damaged pallets that sometimes even food banks don’t want,” Servello says. “Every week, we’re striving to keep product on our shelves. We’re always searching for great sources for frozen and grocery items.”