When we began 2020, nobody could have predicted how our lives would change as a result of COVID-19, let alone how tumultuous the food and beverage sector has been over the past nine months.
Starting with the retail grocery industry, business owners have had to adapt quickly – even more so than over the past several years where change has been the norm. New technology, industry disruptors, and changes in customer tastes have impacted independently-owned supermarkets especially hard. These shifts set the stage as we delved into this pandemic and allowed business owners to adapt to change much quicker. From increased PPE usage, deeper cleaning processes, enforcing social distancing, limiting the store occupancy, reducing hours, staffing concerns, and supply chain issues, this industry has been extremely challenged despite the fact that sales growth in many cases are well ahead of 2019 figures.
