![]() ![]() ![]() The store is about the size of a Trader Joe's and in many way the product mix is similar. Servello built the organization and its networks gradually, establishing relationships with farmers, familiar large retailers and companies such as Chobani, Four years ago, Bargain Grocery moved to a newly built store in a neighborhood east of downtown Utica, allowing for a dramatic increase in sales and popularity. He soon realized that the best path involved bypassing the usual middle-men to focus instead on the vast quantities of food that are routinely thrown away, often for superficial reasons.īut here's what really makes the operation remarkable: Bargain Grocery's profits fund a broader charity that annually distributes $25 million worth of food, household items, school supplies and other items to Utica's poor, free of charge. Servello, a pastor, founded Bargain Grocery two decades ago aiming to serve the poor in Utica neighborhoods without grocery options. "Fresh produce is central to what we do here," said Michael Servello, the store's founder, standing next to blueberries priced at $1.49 a pint as he swept his arm sweeping his arm toward bins of tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchinis and, well, just about every fruit and veggie you'd expect at a supermarket. ![]() But that doesn't mean the food isn't of a high quality or that the store doesn't sell fresh food and vegetables. Much of the food it sells would be otherwise be headed to a landfill. It's a store like no other I've seen, a food retailer with a purpose.Įssentially, it's a salvage store, a supermarket version of, say, Ollie's Bargain Outlet. The Morning Sentinel prices are: $1.30 daily, $2.30 Saturday/Sunday “Weekend Edition”.The store planned for a building at 558 River St., just north of the Collar City Bridge, would be a second location for a grocery that's operating in Utica and is backed by the non-profit Compassion Coalition. In December 2009, the newspaper was criticized for firing one of its journalists who had made negative remarks about the gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign. ![]() Frank Blethen, a descendant of Seattle Times founder Albert Blethen, a Maine native, later called the purchase "the largest and riskiest investment in our history" but a necessary move to keep the newspapers from becoming part of a corporate chain. Gannett and his heirs-no relation to the Virginia-based chain called Gannett Company-held the three Maine dailies until 1998, when they sold them to The Seattle Times Company, which rechristened the chain " Blethen Maine Newspapers". Gannett's ownership also saw the paper become less politically biased. His holdings included the Portland Press Herald and, after 1929, the Sentinel's in-county competitor, the Kennebec Journal. In 1911, a financially ailing Davis sold the paper to bond holders ten years later, it was bought by Guy Gannett, who was in the process of building a newspaper, radio and television empire in Maine. Murphy-the Waterville Morning Sentinel, within a year, grew from a three-desk operation to requiring its own building, on Silver Street. Eugene Thayer, leavened by newspaper veteran Thomas F. Senator Charles Fletcher Johnson and future mayor L. Founded in 1904 by officials of the Waterville Democratic Party-Waterville mayor Cyrus Davis future U.S. ![]()
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