May 1st, 2020

To our Valued Guests,

It has been a little while since I’ve reached out to you.  Since this pandemic began, we have continued to make operational changes with the safety and well being of our customers and team members being our number one priority.  Over the past few weeks we have seen less disruption and changes required in operating our business.  As your local community grocery store, our team continues to work extremely hard to provide an essential service to the communities that we serve.  Once known as a community gathering place to socialize with your friends and neighbours, we have shifted our focus to distancing ourselves and keeping trips into our stores to a minimum.

Our stores continue to improve, as both our team and our customers become accustomed to the many new practices and procedures we have put in place.  Our in stock conditions continue to improve as our supply chain adapts to the increased volume levels.  Our online Express service continues to grow with increased capacities for delivery windows and the new pick up services available at both locations.  In the coming weeks we hope to narrow down our delivery times and get back to the high service levels our customers have come to expect from our Express team.

As we settle into what has become our new reality, we continue to take the opportunity to get back to our grass roots and support our local communities in additional and different ways than we have in the past.

We continue to hear positive feedback and recognition for the efforts of our front line employees.  That praise, whether in writing, given verbally to our Managers or simply a nice comment in passing, goes a long way towards keeping our team inspired to do their utmost every day.   You will see us continue to innovate in our stores to keep everyone healthy.  Thank you for your patience and your continued support.  As a community, we will get through this challenging time together.

Stay safe!

Brian Bradley

President

Stong’s Markets LP

March 31st, 2020

To Our Valued Customers

As your local community grocery store, our number one priority is to keep our customers and our team members safe during this time.  Our team continues to work extremely hard to provide an essential service to the communities that we serve.  Over the past several weeks, we have made a number of changes to the regular operations of our business.  In order to continue to provide a safe shopping experience, we will continue to make changes as the need arises.  Some of the more recent changes include:

• We are limiting the number of customers and employees within our stores, in order to provide a more open, spacious shopping experience
• We have added signage and other visual reminders to promote safe social distancing while you are shopping
• We are in the process of installing plexiglass hygiene shields at our checkouts which will be completed this week
• We will no longer permit the use of reusable bags at the checkout counter. Stong’s will provide paper bags at no charge.
• You will notice deliberate actions by our employees to maintain a safe distance and minimize contact that you may have been accustomed to in the past. As an example, rather than handing a purchase directly to you, our employees should be placing your item for purchase on the counter for pick up.

We continue to work hard on improving our in-stock conditions as many of our suppliers deal with the challenges of the unprecedented volume over the past few weeks.  A number of the smaller independent local suppliers we deal with, have made the decision to halt their operations for the health and safety of their workforces, which means some of your favourite items may not be available at all.

How you Can help us:

• Continue to follow the direction of our local health authorities. Please do not come into our stores if you have travelled or live in the same household with anyone that has traveled outside of Canada within the past 14 days.
• If you have any flu-like symptoms, including fever, cough, sore throat or respiratory issues, please have someone else do your shopping, or try our online service.
• Please leave your reusable shopping bags at home. We will provide paper bags at no charge
• Continue to practice proper social distancing. Keep your distance from other customers whenever and wherever possible.  We have placed numerous visual reminders around the store to help
• Please shop in-store if you are able, and leave our online shopping service for those that are unable to leave their homes at this time.

• Continue to respect any limits we have put in place and purchase only what you need so that we can help as many customers as possible
• Please shop alone if you are able. Having multiple members from the same family shopping together adds to the challenge for others to practice safe social distancing
• Recognize the tremendous efforts of our team as they continue to provide a very high level of service. Please show kindness to all, as a community, we will all get through this if we all support one another.

We will continue to monitor all public health departments’ advisories and, when appropriate and available, update you on how we are adapting our store practices with everyone’s safety in mind.  At Stong’s we are committed to doing our best to ensure our stores offer a safe shopping and working environment and help keep our communities safe. Once known as a community gathering place to socialize with your friends and neighbours, we now shift our focus to distancing ourselves and keeping trips into our stores to a minimum.  As a community, we will get through this challenging time together.

Thank you for your continued support.

Stay safe!

Brian Bradley

President

Stong’s Markets LP

March 13th, 2020

To our Valued Guests,

As the coronavirus COVID-19 affects communities across Canada, we want to update you on what we are doing at Stong’s.  Our entire team of almost 300 strong have been working diligently to keep our stores running.  Our supply chain remains robust and we are working around the clock to replenish our shelves.  The number of people looking to use our online shopping service has been overwhelming and we continue to add resources to try and address this challenge.

As your local community grocery store, our number one priority is to keep our customers and our team members safe. In addition to the steps I outlined in my communication last week, we continue to make changes as the situation evolves.  Some of the changes we are making include, but are not limited to:

New Signage

Installation of visual reminders for all visitors to practice social distancing.

Online shopping

For everyone that has visited our stores, you will have noticed some of the actions we have already taken:

• We have suspended the sale of any self serve ready to eat foods including our salad bars, bulk foods, hot soup and bulk bakery products
• We have removed all indoor seating to encourage social distancing
• We have added janitorial staff devoted strictly to the increased cleaning and sanitizing of all high touch areas throughout the store
• We have reduced the hours in our café, which will allow us to redeploy our resources to more essential services within the store

How you Can help us:

• Practice proper social distancing. Keep your distance from other customers whenever and wherever possible
• Please shop in store if you are able, and leave our on line shopping service for those that are unable to leave their homes at this time.
• Recognize the efforts of our team in store. Please show kindness to all, as a community, we will all get through this if we all support one another.

At Stong’s we are committed to doing our best to ensure our stores offer a safe shopping and working environment and help keep our communities safe. We will continue to monitor all public health departments advisories and, when appropriate and available, update you on how we are adapting our store practices with everyone’s safety in mind.

Thank you for your continued support.
Stay safe!

Brian Bradley
President
Stong’s Markets LP