The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Food retailers yesterday confirmed that major wholesale suppliers have been allowed to restock their stores on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s amid the latest COVID-19 lockdown.

Cyril Carey, general manager of Kenneth’s Food Store on Prince Charles Drive, told Tribune Business: “Business was great. The crowd was good on Wednesday. I think this would be OK for the next two weeks. I know we have the ability to replenish the stock on Thursday, which makes it a whole lot easier when you have staff and customers in and out.”

Wholesale suppliers were initially left off the list of exempted, essential businesses able to operate during the lockdown, which resulted in the Chamber of Commerce and other private sector executives calling for their inclusion.

Mr Carey said he expects suppliers will come and replenish his inventory every Tuesday and Thursday moving forward, and added: “They have agreed to try to get to the stores on those days and make deliveries.

“I know they were putting out to which stores were willing to open and take the deliveries, and I was one of those stores that agreed, because what I had placed for Wednesday didn’t show up, so I have to get that in for Thursday, hopefully,” he added.

“I have all of the major wholesalers on the island. I have Asa H Pritchard, Bahamas Food Services and the D’Albenas Agency, and they all agreed to come to me on Thursday.”

Bradley Rolle, Centreville Food Market’s general manager, said: “The traffic was even flow. It wasn’t burdesnsome, and people were just doing what they had to do before Thursday, which is the non-shopping day. We didn’t have the large volume like Super Value; we had regular traffic.”

Mr Rolle said Asa H Pritchard, D’Albenas, Thompson Trading and Lightbourne Trading were all expected to arrive and replenish his stock yesterday, with the process going “smoothly”.

Atwell Ferguson, general manager of Golden Gates Supermarket, said: “Everything went pretty average on Wednesday. It wasn’t slow and it wasn’t busy; it was just basically average.”

Mr Ferguson said there was no issue with overcrowding and all customers paid attention to the social distancing guidelines, adding: “We got some stock in on Wednesday, and we may get some in on Thursday, but we wouldn’t be open. We will be here to receive the stock. We only have the D’Albenas (Agency) coming to us on Thursday.”