January 2019 Business View Caribbean

46 47 in business for the benefit of fellow members of society is reflected, not only in the everyday low prices, but also in the company’s support of community projects, initiatives, and clubs. Customers are invited to “visit our stores, become part of the Glace family, and see why Glace will always be ‘Your Choice for Better Value.’” General Manager of Glace Supermarket, Anthony Bousquet, talks about the evolution of the company: “Glace was started in 1977 by Greg Glace. In 1981, Girard Glace (Greg’s brother) and his wife, Veronica, acquired the shares of the company and are still the owners. Today, it is essentially a General Store – the main driver is the supermarket, it also has a bakery, a fuel station, hardware, wholesale meats and drinks – there is a lot going on at one location.” Glace Supermarket had expanded over the years, at its peak employing 150 workers throughout four locations. But since 2008, the combination of tough economic headwinds and strong competition from regional conglomerates has seen the company engage in a lot of consolidation. Today, Glace operates a thriving business, solely from its original large facility in Marisule, Gros Islets, with about 80 employees. In 1977, that first store was only around 1,500 square feet. It began as an auto accessories location, then added rental cars. Over the years, the car rental section was dropped, and the store has since grown through a process of accretion to 25,000 sq. ft. of building space. Customers come primarily from the north of St. Lucia, where 70 percent of the island population lives. The company sees a fair amount of tourist trade, but mostly for the purchase of alcohol, especially local rums, that are available in the supermarket. “The bread has been a huge draw over the years,” Bousquet boasts, with good reason. “The bakery is the soul of the business.When it started off in the early 1980s, the bread and the cakes were being baked by Mrs. Veronica Glace at her own home. To this day, we have the distinction of baking preservative-free bread. I believe we are one of the few, if not the only one, on the island who follows that philosophy. Our ingredient base is also better, from the perspective that we use better quality, more expensive ingredients.We’ve focused over the years on our bakery being able to produce exclusive preservative-free bread, which is widely regarded as the best on St. Lucia. And it smells absolutely wonderful when you walk into the store.” In 2014, Glace Supermarket – the bakery division–had gone into partnership with a regional company, and the bread was being marketed under the Wonder Bakery logo in St. Lucia. But last year, Glace reacquired the bakery, rehired their previous bakers, and restarted that portion of the business. Bousquet reports, “We’re keeping the original ingredients, the original methodology, and the original recipes, and it’s going great. The feedback has been tremendous. The grocery division certainly brings in more revenue, but the bakery would be, by far, the most profitable part of our business, right now.” The hardware, auto accessories, and gas station are all located on the same site as the supermarket and bakery but are separate divisions of the company.What’s interesting, according to Bousquet, is that when Glace first tied the supermarket to the fuel station, even GLACE SUPERMARKET Glace Bakery Worker Glace Bakery Staff