Brookshire's employee Aaron Caskey works in a new role as a social monitor at Brookshire's grocery store in Flint, Texas. On Monday, April 27, 2020, he is pictured counting the amount of people entering and leaving the store in an effort to have reduced occupancy encourage social distancing.

There’s a new normal for employees and customers at Brookshire Grocery Co. stores.

At the entrance of Brookshire’s No. 39 in Flint, posted signs encourage different measures: social distancing, reserving special hours for senior citizens to shop safely, the importance of washing hands and symptoms of COVID-19 to watch out for.

There’s a hand washing station and cart wipes available. An employee wearing a shirt that reads “Social Monitor” reminds customers and coworkers to stay 6 feet apart, and another employee counts the number of people entering and exiting the store. The aim is to reduce occupancy to 40% to prevent crowding. Employees are now wearing company-provided face masks and gloves to help stop the spread of the virus.

Robert Marta, district manager at Brookshire Grocery Co., has worked at the company for 20 years. He says that a lot has changed since the novel coronavirus spread to East Texas in March.

“We saw a huge influx of business due to societal fear,” Marta said. “People felt uncertain because of a fear of the unknown. They wanted to stock up and hole up in a house to be safe.”

He said that panic first started with paper products and sanitizers then progressed to the staples like milk, eggs, bread and cases of water. Lastly it moved to meal solutions like frozen meals. Store hours had to be shortened so employees could catch up on replenishing shelves and cleaning.

“We saw an enormous surge that first week,” Marta said. “We had seen tremendous volume levels that exceeded a lot of our holiday sales.”

As stay-at-home orders came in, county by county across Texas, grocery stores became essential businesses and their employees essential workers.

“We think of first responders, the medical and police community and the different organizations who protect us as the real heroes, but here we are in a day and age where now grocery stores are being associated with those frontline heroes,” Marta said.

Wanting to be as safe as possible, the Brookshire Grocery Co. followed CDC recommendations for things like placing social distance markers at check-outs and sanitizing all touch surfaces including the grocery belts and shopping carts. Employees have their temperature taken at the start of their shifts to ensure that no one has a fever.

“We’ve always had high standards when it comes to having clean stores, but in the case of the pandemic, we’ve taken additional measures to have even higher standards and more stringent cleaning and sanitation throughout the store,” Marta said.

The Brookshire Grocery Co. is comprised of 181 stores including Brookshire’s, Fresh, Super1Food and Spring Market.

As other businesses closed temporarily, Brookshire Grocery Co. needed to ramp up employment to meet the demand of their influx of sales. They hired 2,500 extra people.

“We’ve been able to help get people employed and earn income during a very stressful time,” Marta said.

The company is currently looking to expand and upgrade their curbside ordering service which has seen increased use during the pandemic. Curbside fees have been waived through May 5.

The stores also encourage the community to support their “senior hours” initiative which invites customers who are senior citizens to shop in a safe environment from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. each day. They have expanded their 5% senior discount from one day a week to every day through May 5, and all Brookshire’s, Super 1 Foods and Fresh stores in Tyler are now offering free next-day pharmacy delivery to senior citizens.