Tyler, Texas-based Brookshire Grocery Co. is recognizing its employee-partners for their dedication and service to their communities while serving through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and this past week’s winter storm. It is showing its appreciation by giving gift cards and additional hourly pay to its team.
This aligns with the national Food Industry Association’s earlier declaration of Monday, Feb. 22, as Supermarket Employee Day nationwide.
All employee-partners will receive a $100 BGC gift card for their dedication to serving the more than 150 communities BGC stores support. All hourly retail and logistics employee-partners who worked during the winter storm, from Feb. 13-19, will receive an extra $5 per hour appreciation pay for their time worked.
This is in addition to the extra $1 per hour frontline employees have been receiving since March of last year for their service during the ongoing pandemic. Retail management leaders are also receiving additional appreciation for their efforts.
“Supermarket Employee Day is dedicated to recognizing the critical responsibility our employee-partners hold in serving the pipeline of food, home and health supplies that sustain the well-being of our customers and communities,” said Brad Brookshire, chairman and CEO for Brookshire Grocery Co. “Our incredibly dedicated employee-partners are going above and beyond in meeting our customers’ needs as we work to recover from this storm. We are doing everything we can to return our store shelves to fully stocked conditions as quickly as possible.”
To celebrate Supermarket Employee Day, BGC had planned to give all employee-partners a special, one-time partner discount of 22 percent – its largest employee discount ever – to be used in one transaction on Feb. 22. This discount offer has been rescheduled to Monday, March 1, to allow employees to enjoy a complete shopping experience after stores replenish their shelves this week.
Reports continue to come in of employee-partners’ selfless service and demonstration of BGC’s core values. Among these incredible stories are praise such as the employee-partners from the Brookshire’s in Hot Springs, Arkansas, who didn’t let 20 inches of snow stop them. One employee even walked to work and home each day to be able to help the handful of other employee-partners at the store. Throughout the week, dozens of BGC Store Directors slept at their stores overnight to ensure that they would be there the next morning to open the stores.
Due to the road conditions, BGC’s 18-wheeler trucks were unable to deliver to stores, so leaders formed a team of four-wheel drive pickup trucks, with personal and loaned vehicles, to take deliveries to stores. Other employee-partners who had four-wheel drive vehicles made deliveries of groceries to customers who were homebound and picked up their coworkers to take them to work. The company did not ask or require employee-partners do this. Leaders only asked those who could safely travel to the store to do so and respected the decision of those who were unable to work.
BGC also answered the call from several organizations who were in need of support. The company donated and helped source water and supplies for several hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations and police departments as they were running low. In addition, BGC donated and gave away more than 7,600 cases of water to individuals in need during drive-thru events at Tyler stores. The company’s “Community Kitchen” and a team of employee-partners cooked breakfast for six hours to feed the Tyler community a free, hot meal.
BGC is a regional, family-owned grocery business that employs close to 16,000 individuals throughout Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. The company operates more than 180 stores under the Brookshire’s, Super 1 Foods, FRESH by Brookshire’s and Spring Market banners, along with three distribution centers and corporate offices.
