A growing number of restaurants are offering produce, dry goods and pantry staples to customers, in addition to their normal menu items. Max Posner/NPR

Originally published by NPR

With their sit-down dining rooms shut down, a growing number of restaurants are expanding into groceries as a source of much-needed cash in this crisis.

Restaurants are trying out a new answer. Too many tomatoes? Add them to the online ordering system.

Sysco, one of the country's largest restaurant suppliers, is offering advice and support for restaurants that want to start selling groceries. "Sysco has plenty of inventory and products to help your customers meet the demands and needs that are lacking from their local grocery stores," the company writes, while emphasizing the importance of social distancing behind the scenes at these pop-up stores.

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Due to COVID-19, restaurant operators across the country have ceased dine-in services and grocery stores are stressed with product offerings. Sysco is providing restaurants with an alternative, temporary, business model during the coronavirus pandemic to bring in customers safely to purchase the essential pantry items that they need for their families

Sysco Pop Up Shop has the inventory for you to offer to your customers, to meet the needs and demands that they are not finding at the local grocery store. Sysco Pop Up Shop products vary by location but will include essential commodities such as eggs, condiments, bread, toilet paper, and paper towels to provide nourishment and a sense of reassurance in your community.. 

Learn more about Sysco Pop Up Shops to help provide nourishment to your neighborhood!

Sysco Corporation

Sysco Corporation

Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers who prepare meals away from home. Its family of products also includes equipment and supplies for the foodservice and hospitality industries. The company operates 186 distribution facilities serving approximately 400,000 customers. For the fiscal year 2009 that ended June 27, 2009, the company generated more than $36 billion in sales.

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