Despite finding success while running his own Mac’s Convenience Store and subsequently launching his own convenience store chain along with his brother in Saskatchewan in the 80s, Ravinder Narula and his family decided to move to BC in order to reconnect with their South Asian roots.

Upon his arrival in Vancouver in 1991, Ravinder realized that there was a shortage of South Asian produce and grocery available within a province that was home to a large South Asian community. He concluded that this inevitably meant that just like him, a whole generation of immigrants were missing the tastes of the traditional cuisines that they enjoyed while growing up in India.

With the intention of filling this void within the South Asian grocery market, Ravinder began his mission by purchasing a small grocery store called Singh Foods. Sixteen years later, he took over a Surrey-based South Asian grocery store named Sabzi Mandi Supermarket.

Relying on the extensive experience that he gained while working and eventually running his own grocery-based stores just two years after he immigrated from India in 1982, Ravinder and his son Aman have been able to expand and popularize the Sabzi Mandi Supermarket brand across BC, where there are currently eight stores in operation and a ninth location opening up by the end of the year.

Despite their widespread knowledge and experience in the grocery industry, like most businesses across the world, all eight of Sabzi Mandi’s locations have been forced to charter unfamiliar territory and modify their usual business practices in the midst of the global COVID 19-pandemic.

These modifications, which included the implementation of partitions between cashiers and customers as well as the provision of gloves and masks, were all put into place to prioritize and ensure the safety of employees and customers.

Ravinder Narula - President

While all locations are successfully following the required health mandates such as limiting the number of customers inside the store at one time and marking the floor to maintain social distancing between customers – Aman admits that it was initially a challenging task to implement these procedures as all of the locations have differences in floor space.

Eventually, due to an inherent need to adapt and counter the constraints put upon the world and grocery industry by the virus, Ravinder, Aman and their team made it a priority to proactively employ a slew of non-mandated measures.

One of these non-mandated measures, which no other South Asian grocery chain has implemented so far, includes a curbside pickup service available at all of their stores.

Interestingly enough, while this practice was originally initiated due to the pandemic, Aman explains that it is a service that the chain will continue to provide even after the virus is contained.

“It’s a very simple kind of old school process where the customer calls in and places their order. We then call them back and explain the total price. If they are happy with the price, we take an hour to put the order together and the customer calls us when they are outside. In order to prevent contact, we take a wireless machine outside where they have the option of tapping their card. We put the groceries inside their trunk, and we continue to see that a lot of customers appreciate that,” explains Narula.

Besides ensuring safety and promoting comfort during the pandemic, Aman acknowledges that a curb-side pick-up service is convenient to customers in a day and age where they have multiple responsibilities and live a fast-paced lifestyle.

Besides the pickup service, the company has also put up signs in English and Punjabi explaining policies related to COVID-19.

Reflecting on the other challenges that the chain of stores faced during the early days of COVID, Aman remembers that they were forced to hire about 25 new employees to keep up with increased business demands and employee absences which were brought on by fear of the pandemic.

Further, extra pressure was put on the whole team as everyone had to modify their regular cleaning procedures to include extra sanitization of shopping carts, handles and cashier machines.

From a business and customer service perspective, management also had to eventually put a limit on the amount of product that individuals could buy as they wanted to ensure that “every customer got enough of the basic necessities to be able to feed their family.”

“The first few days when the seriousness of [COVID] really hit was March 14, 15 and 16 and around this time Sophie Trudeau was diagnosed with it. The same day that this was announced, the World Health Organization came out and said it’s probably a good idea to have people stock up a little bit on necessities and that’s kind of when things went haywire…and the whole industry was unequipped for this. We have our own warehouse, but nobody prepares for months of supplies selling in a matter of weeks,” explains Aman. He adds that the chain was able to navigate these difficulties through teamwork and support from their loyal employees, who stayed back after hours to help restock the shelves and ensure that the stores were ready to serve customers in the morning.

“At the end of the day, we had bare shelves…we could have easily thrown in the towel and decided to restock the shelves the next day. But what that would have done is increase customer panic…our team stayed back with us and helped us out during this tough period and we would have dinner together here, in the store, and we just somehow got through it."

Besides essential items, particular companies, and the services that they provide have literally become lifelines for individuals across the world.

One of these companies, which operates co-currently in every Sabzi Mandi Supermarket location, is Western Union.

Indeed, through their service of providing easy and convenient money-transferring services, Western Union has always been instrumental in helping individuals stay emotionally and financially connected to their loved ones all around the world.

The company’s role has become even more substantial during this unprecedented time in the world’s history as unemployment and uncertainty is rampant.