Amid flood soaked, trash lined streets of Bluffton, there’s is one sign that things are slowly starting to return to normal. Just over a week after more than a foot and a half of water breeched the doors of the Bluffton Community Market the store is reopening.

 

Reopening in such a short amount of time was no small task. Clean up began almost immediately after the waters receded and clean up crews worked tirelessly through Wednesday morning, when the store was given the go ahead by the Health Department to reopen. Clean up was conducted by store staff, staff from other Community Markets stores, Maximum Restoration - a professional cleaning service and even volunteers from the community. The staff of Community Markets then worked late Wednesday to restock shelves for Thursday’s reopening.

 

According to store manager Randy Seitz, “I’m very proud of how my staff, the whole Community Markets Family and the Bluffton Community pulled together to help us reopen this quickly.” Seitz also mentioned that all the regular services, including the meat department, produce department and deli would all be open for regular service beginning Thursday.

 

“We’ve done everything we needed to do to reopen for business, and then some” according to Senior Vice President of Marketing, Eric Anderson, adding that all contaminated food and equipment was disposed of, and everything that remained was cleaned and sanitized. Anderson also noted that “Serving our community is what we do best, and while we’re eager to get back to doing that, we would not reopen if we felt there was even the slightest risk to our customers.”

 

Community Markets is located at 154 Vance St., Bluffton, OH, Open seven days a week from 7 am to 10pm. Community Markets is part of family owned Fresh Encounter, Inc., Ohio’s largest independent grocery retailer; now operating 32 outlets throughout Ohio and Indiana. Fresh Encounter, headquartered in Findlay, Ohio, operates supermarkets under the brands of Community Markets, Great Scot Community Markets, Fulmer Community Markets, Save-a-Lot and Sack-N-Save Supermarkets.