When the Coronavirus hit, Jason and Devin Sardilli the brothers who own Sardilli Produce and Dairy knew they needed to pivot to try and stay solvent.
Jason Sardilli said, “we strictly do restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and schools and because of the outbreak we had a total loss of business in a matter of a week.”
The brothers came up with a plan to create boxes of their products and offer them online – then people would come to the Sardilli’s south end warehouse and pick up their order from their lot.
“We offer a combo box which is veggies and fruit, a fruit box, we also offer a meat box, a seafood box, and a dairy box,” Jason Sardilli said.
The pick-up box business seems to be booming, and now, twice a week, hundreds of cars show up to get their pre-paid on-line orders. Dozens of Sardilli employees work the line and put boxes in trunk after truck for the customers. A by-product of the boxes success has been that the Sardilli’s have been able to hire back furloughed employees, about 30 of them so far.
Devin Sardilli said, “we’re giving employees more hours, more days, so this has really helped out a lot.” Jason Sardilli added, “having to furlough these guys but now to be able to have some of them back – it means something to us.”
To find out more about Sardilli’s pick-up box program click here.