Stepping Up to the Plate

Grocer Sam Hamama and the Family Foods family.

Rising prices are another challenge in grocery store owners’ daily quest to keep customers coming back

By Steve Stein

“Thank you.”

Chaldean grocery store owners in inner-city locations say they’re hearing those two simple but powerful words from their customers more than ever these days. That’s amazing and encouraging given the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and tense past relationships between some Chaldean grocery store owners and their customers.

It wasn’t enough for store owners to deal with product shortages, social distancing, mandatory masks, continuous disinfecting and overworked employees since the start of the pandemic in mid-March. Now these grocery store owners also are faced with rising grocery prices caused by circumstances beyond their control and having to defend those prices to their customers, who most likely live in the neighborhood and can’t travel to other grocery stores.

Three Chaldean grocery store owners say they’re keeping profit margins as small as possible or nonexistent to keep their customers happy.

Randy Rabban owns five Sav-A-Lot stores, four in Detroit and one in Ypsilanti, with other family members. He said when customers complain about his prices, he points out that prices are higher for items everywhere, like the 25-cent mask that now sells for $1.25. Comparisons like that usually cool the conversation.

“We’re hearing a lot of ‘thank you’s and ‘God bless you’s. A hundred-fold more than before,” Rabban said. “That’s great because my customers rely on me, and I rely on them.”

Sam Hamama, owner of Family Foods Market in Harper Woods, said he goes out of his way to show customers what he pays suppliers so they can see his profit margins. That often results in a “thank you,” he said. “I’m not going to jack up my prices because I want my customers to keep coming back month after month,” Hamama said. “Also, it’s very important to be very patient these days when you’re talking with your customers. One eye-roll from on the top of your mask, and your customer is gone.”

Sam Khemmoro, owner of Grace Food Market locations in Detroit and Highland Park, said he got an apology from a previously angry customer. “A lady who walked out of our store because she thought our meat prices were too high came back in a few days later and I showed her what I pay for meat,” he said. “She thanked me for the information and apologized.”

Prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs have been rising dramatically. That’s a major reason why the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Consumer Price Index report showed customers across the nation paid an average of 2.6% more for groceries in April than March, the largest monthly increase since February 1974.

Metro Detroit shoppers paid 3.3% more for groceries from February to April, according to a regional report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Grocery store owners are not at fault for the price hikes. Blame the virus and supply-and-demand economics.

Meat processing plants across the country have closed or had to slow production because of virus outbreaks, and there’s been a shift in food production from restaurants to retail, with restaurants not being allowed to open their doors because of the public health crisis.

Panic buying by grocery store customers hasn’t helped matters.

Improving relationships between Chaldean grocery store owners and their inner-city customers isn’t just a product of how the store owners have stepped up during the pandemic, Rabban said. “There were some bad apples in the past who owned stores,” he said. “But today is different. It’s not like it used to be.”

Meanwhile, Chaldean grocery store owners like Khemmoro, Rabban and Hamama are putting in long days and nights at work and doing whatever they can to keep their employees safe.

“I haven’t had a day off since March 17. I’m exhausted,” Khemmoro said during a mid-May interview. He was proud to add that everyone who works in his stores had a negative test for COVID-19 and his Health Department inspections went well.

“I’m working a lot more than I ever did,” Rabban said. “It’s stressful. We’re understaffed and overworked. We’ve done everything we can to help our employees, like shortening our hours.”

Hamama said keeping his employees healthy and happy is his top priority. He said he’s provided extra pay and lunch for them, and he’s always asking how they are doing. “I put in shields at the cash registers before anyone else did,” he said. “I spent more than $1,100 on unbreakable plastic that’s going to last.”