For 80 years, Simos Produce in Springfield has delivered fruits and vegetables to hundreds of customers, including restaurants, schools, retirement homes, jails, and grocery stores. The family-owned wholesaler had a niche, and longtime staff ran through a day’s delivery with the same ease it takes to slice a cucumber.
Then, COVID-19 struck, and Scott Smith, Simos’ assistant general manager, says the economic hit was almost instantaneous. As restaurants and schools were forced to close, the need for deliveries tapered down.
Smith began talking about the crisis Simos faced with Jeremy Durrin, the account and marketing manager, and Trevor Emond, the company president.
As they talked about saving the business, the three longtime friends also noticed that their friends and family members were frightened. “They didn’t want to go out,” Smith recounts. “We were essential employees with a whole warehouse of food, with a distribution center with trucks and drivers. We thought, ‘Let’s bring food to our friends’ houses and do what we can.’”
What started as an altruistic way to help those in their innermost circles immediately grew into an idea that serves hundreds of people across the Pioneer Valley. Simos now offers daily deliveries of boxes loaded with enough fruit, vegetables and dairy to last a family of four a full week.
Simos Produce was appropriately founded on Avocado Street in Springfield in 1934 by three immigrants from Greece. The Delis family took over the business in the 1970s, and the company is still family-owned today.
From the start, the mission of the organization was to source and deliver locally harvested produce, when it’s available in New England, and produce from around the country when it is not. Before the pandemic, Smith said 100% of the business’ profits came from wholesale deliveries, now it’s more like 80% wholesale, 20% boxed deliveries.
“It’s definitely been tough this year,” he says of 2020. “Pivoting to curate grocery boxes has saved us.”
When the idea launched – shortly after Smith, Durrin and Emond began delivering to friends – they were trucking hundreds of boxes a day to individual homes, as well as remaining wholesale customers’ warehouses. Along with pallets of produce for wholesale customers, the trucks also held dozen of the $55 boxed deliveries, each containing milk, eggs, butter, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and broccoli, along with fruit such as pineapple and cantaloupe.
Smith says it was a chaotic start because there were no systems in place. Hundreds of orders came in via the phone and were difficult to organize. Truckers with decades worth of experience in packing, loading and delivering wholesale goods had to learn how to safely deliver to individual homes during a pandemic.
“It wasn’t just plug and play,” Smith explains, noting that after some training for the six drivers and four warehouse staff, everyone got up to speed, “like they’ve done it forever.”
“It’s been a challenge,” Durrin adds.
Now, customers can order online, and deliveries can be scheduled the next day – or any day. And the company has purchased iPhones and GPS software that dovetails with the wholesale business system that was earlier in place. This way, when a truck is loaded with wholesale and individual deliveries, the software creates a route that is most efficient.
As of December, Simos was delivering about 15 boxed groceries a day. “It ebbs and flows, based on what the government is mandating,” Smith explains.
Durrin said the new mission is in place indefinitely. “If it trickles down to almost nothing, we might decide to end it,” he says, adding, “We’ve gotten really positive feedback from the community, so I think we will keep it going.”
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