With food costs on the rise and feeding the family becoming more and more of a burden, mother of two Taylor Shifflet wanted to do something about it. She looked around and realized it had been several years since Nelson County had something resembling a low-cost salvage grocery, and with the opening of Smalltown Discount Grocery this week, she’s hoping to fill the void.
“There was a couple stores I used to shop at, but they’re closed now,” Shifflet said. “I guess they were having trouble getting inventory and merchandise.”
She did some research, and found some options in other states for “scratch-and-dent” canned and dry goods, where you could purchase pallets all the way up to truckloads of salvage groceries that could be resold at a discount. It took some digging around. There were companies in Indiana and Ohio who sell salvage groceries, but she couldn’t make the connection there. She did, however, make contact with operations in New York and Texas, and that is where her stock will come from.
“Everything’s so expensive right now — I just wanted to do something the community could really benefit off of,” Shifflet said. “So I thought of doing it myself, (but) it’s just a lot of work to start with.”
She took over the lease at what was formerly Parker’s Wildflower on Chambers Boulevard, and has been hard at work with the help of family members, from painting the walls and building shelving units by hand, to receiving trucks and stocking the shelves. She was busy on Saturday along with family members putting up stock, getting ready for her final inspection before opening the doors to the public on Friday.
“We’re excited to do it all,” Shifflet said, “it’s just time-consuming and a lot of hard work getting the trucks unloaded.”
She’s hoping that in the future she can hire some teenagers to help with the heavy lifting once the business gets up and running.
There will be no refrigerated items on the shelves. However, the shelves are being populated by dry goods and canned goods, many of them from well-known brands such as Progresso soups and Kraft Mac-and-Cheese.
“The good kind,” Shifflet said with a laugh, “not the kind with the powdered cheese.”
Shelves are being stocked according to like items, so sauces will be grouped together, as will beans, rice, pasta, juices, cereals and soups, among many others.
The items in her store never made it to the shelves of major grocery chains. Some of the boxes and cans will be dented, and some might be running close to or just past the “best by” date. Still good products, Shifflet said, and the products will be priced to move, at a fraction of the cost that you might find the same items for at Kroger or Walmart. For example, a can of soup that might cost $3 at a major chain will cost maybe a dollar at Smalltown Discount Grocery, much you might find at Amish discount stores.
Other items such as health and beauty products and certain snacks will also be available.
Shifflet said she has posted to Facebook explaining to her followers the nature of “scratch-and-dent” salvage groceries, and how they can be a benefit to potential customers, especially price-wise.
“There hasn’t been a salvage store in years, so the community isn’t really aware of what’s healthy and what’s not healthy,” she said. “… Everything we will be selling is legal to sell. It won’t make you sick. … Everything is name-brand.”
While there has been some negative feedback — requiring Shifflet to explain the nature of what she’s trying to do — overall the reception has been positive from those with whom she’s interacted on social media.
“Hopefully people can come here and get the majority of their groceries,” she said, and folks can then go somewhere else for meats and produce and refrigerated/frozen items. She’s also hoping she can connect with local producers of canned or jar goods, such as pickles, jams, salsa, honey and items such as that.
The discounts will be steep, and Shifflet said she’s thinking about setting up a display on the shelves with a $20 bill surrounded with items that could be used to make a whole meal consisting of products from her store.
Shifflet said hours of operation at her family-run business will be Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. She’s considering doing some Sunday hours following church. She may be open extended hours during the summer months.
“Right now it’s trial and error, to see how busy we are,” she said.
She said a lot of time is spent inspecting the products to make sure they’re able to be sold. Some items do not survive the shipping process, unfortunately, but most do.
“There’s nothing here that I wouldn’t eat,” Shifflet said. “And if it looks bad or something, it’s going in the trash. If I wouldn’t eat it, I wouldn’t sell it.”
Dining and Cooking