Last updated on April 2nd, 2020
Elden’s Fresh Foods has been serving the Alexandria, Minnesota, community since 1982. Like most grocery retailers during the Covid-19 pandemic, it has had to make some adjustments.
Elliot Christensen, who is co-owner with his brother, Dennis, told The Shelby Report on March 25 about changing the hours at the 50,000-s.f. store and other measures they’ve taken.
“We were a 24-hour store. We went to 6 a.m. to midnight and now we’ve changed again, and we are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.,” he said. “We do dedicate…the first hour of (every) day–7 to 8 a.m.—for our senior citizens to come on in and shop and those that have issues with their immune system. We invite them all to come in for an hour to do their shopping, and we’ve got signs posted in our store asking our customers to please adhere to that policy if they would.
“We see that first hour more and more seniors are coming in, and they are very happy that this is available to them.”
To alert residents to the senior hour, Christensen said the company primarily relied on “word of mouth.” However, he added, “We also work with the senior citizen center. We work with the chamber of commerce. It should be posted on our website…and we have it on the radio.”
To date, Christensen said the store has been able to keep pace with demand.
“Yes, we have toilet paper. Our supplier—AWG out of Norfolk, Nebraska—(is a) great supplier. We get trucks five days a week and on every truck we’ve been able to get a limited amount of toilet paper. So we do have toilet paper for our customers.
“We are very community minded…we’ve been in Alexandria for 38 years and we are really involved…because of the things that we’ve done in our community I’ve had numerous customers that have come up to me during this time in the last two weeks and say, ‘Elliot, what do you want me to do? I’m here to help you.’
“They want no compensation. They stock shelves. They sanitize carts. They sweep the floors. They have pitched in, and it’s phenomenal. Thank you to the community and the people that are doing the helping.”
Christensen said the store offers specials when possible.
“We keep our temporary price reduction items that we can get quantity on. We run out there an ad price,” he said. “We do send our customers a $5 off of $30 (worth of items).
“We have other items on our app that we do for our customers as far as discounts…the app really works for us well. It draws people in. To have almost 20,000 people in a county of 37,000 on our app, it’s phenomenal.”
Post pandemic, some of the changes at Elden’s Fresh Foods, including the seniors-only hour, may become permanent.
“They are the early-risers and they like getting up early and getting in here and not have to deal with all the traffic and hustle and bustle,” Christensen said of senior shoppers. “So yeah, that would be our plan.”
