Ray Roch wasn’t sure what would become of his family business when Rhode Island’s public schools closed in mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic gained strength.
With most restaurants either shuttered or serving limited take-out menus, the bulk of Roch’s Fresh Foods LLC wholesale clients were no longer buying fruits and vegetables from the West Greenwich-based company.
Under normal circumstances, the business sells produce to about 500 restaurants, schools and universities in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. With the onset of the health crisis, Roch’s 25 delivery trucks were idle, and 40 workers were laid off.
Sales volume at its small produce market in Narragansett wasn’t enough to sustain the company.
“We were ready to turn the lights off and shut down, we didn’t know what to do,” said Zach Roch, Ray Roch’s son and vice president of the company.
As a last-ditch effort to stay open, the general manager suggested home delivery, an idea that had been floated before but never tested at Roch’s.
“The first day we had 50 orders, the second day we had 100 orders,” Ray Roch said.
As word of mouth and strategic use of social media drew more attention to the service, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo’s administration called, offering the company a chance to use the RI Delivers online platform to take orders from people in need or in quarantine who couldn’t get to grocery stores.
A few days into April, Roch’s was handling 250 orders a day, and by the end of the month’s first weekend, Ray Roch expected to fill up to 700 orders. The demand allowed the Rochs to recall all of their laid-off workers, and to hire more than 10 new employees.
“We called them all back. Now we’re running around like chaotic madmen trying to keep up, and it’s working out great,” Ray Roch said.
Founded about 65 years ago by his grandfather, the business opened in West Warwick and was an institution in Pawtuxet Valley. Known for years as Veterans Square Market, the company then split into two separate stores under the same roof. As Roch’s Bros, Ray Roch’s father oversaw produce sales and his uncle operated the meat market and grocery store.
Eventually, the produce side entered the wholesale business, and the family sold off the other half of the company.
Roch’s Fresh Foods, a 4,500-square-foot market, opened in the Bonnet Shores section of Narragansett in 2002, and the business moved its wholesale headquarters to West Greenwich in 2013.
Another market, also named Roch’s Fresh Foods, is planned next door to the West Greenwich facility. The 17,000-square-foot project was put on hold due to the corornavirus outbreak, but groundbreaking is expected “as soon as we can, as soon as this is over,” Ray Roch said.
He’s been able to gauge the need for a new market there by the “tremendous” response to the pop-up grocery store the company opened at its wholesale facility during the first weeks of the health crisis.
Future plans include more retail stores, and expanding wholesale product lines to dry goods and meat.
Roch’s home delivery service, with its broadening selection that now includes Cape Cod Potato Chips, Boar’s Head deli meat and Warwick Ice Cream Co., will also continue to operate after the pandemic fades.
“The restaurants and schools, that’s our bread and butter, [but] we had to move to a new niche, and I think this is going to be part of our future business now,” Zach Roch said. “I’m glad this is the kick that made us do it.”
OWNER: Ray Roch
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Grocery wholesaler, distributor and retailer
LOCATION: 30 Arnold Farm Road, West Greenwich
EMPLOYEES: 150
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1954
ANNUAL SALES: More than $20 million
