CHICOPEE – A local grocer in Chicopee is working to provide customers with essential supplies they may need from the safety of their homes.

Sam Newell, who owns Fruit Fair at 398 Front St., said they began offering customers essential boxes after the store manager came up with the idea. Newell told Reminder Publishing that the store often has a shortage of some items due to the current circumstances in the world.

The boxes, she said, offer customers four different options of items the store will have in stock and be able to deliver. “We know these are the items we’re going to have in stock and be able to fill it in an efficient way,” she said.

The boxes are available for customers to order online. Newell said, “One [box] is very much towards breakfast, one is geared towards filling up your pantry, all the canned goods.”

She added that one box includes everything to make family-sized meals such as two pounds of ground beef, two jars of sauce, a gallon of milk, chicken, bread, boxes of pasta and various fruits and vegetables.

Newell said the boxes have been very popular among customers. “They have been working, most of the home deliveries have one or more of these boxes,” she said. “Seventy percent of our orders have one of the essential boxes.”

She said the boxes can be added as part of a grocery order or bought on their own. Newell laughed as she said, “Some people will order one Good Morning Box and two kielbasa.” Once the order is placed, Newell said the deliveries will be made either the same day, or the next day.

Newell said Fruit Fair is Chicopee’s first grocery store that began in 1936, and a lot of their customers have been shopping at the store for years. “Ninety-percent of the people that we serve are regular shoppers. The people that come to the store are very emotionally attached,” she said.

The boxes are available for order online at fruitfair.net and range from $40 to $55, however, there is a $50 order minimum. It costs $3 for groceries to be delivered to Chicopee residents. Newell said anywhere outside of Chicopee will be charged $1 per mile they live outside of the city. “South Hadley is about $7 to $8,” she explained.

Newell said while there is a delivery fee, if “someone is paying with EBT we waive it, no questions asked.” Deliveries outside of Chicopee being paid for with EBT will also still be made, she said. The delivery fee can also be waived for those struggling with money, and when an order is placed Newell said they ask if the fee is a problem.