Three generations of D’Apriles have built a thriving Wethersfield small grocery business that sells food products directly imported from Italy.
D&D Market, marking 90 years in business in 2022, has long been popular with customers looking for authentic flavors from Bel Paese (beautiful country) and not just those from Greater Hartford’s Italian-American community, but the increasing number of people who simply love Italian food, the world’s most popular cuisine.
“It’s not just people of Italian descent who shop here, it’s everyone who likes to cook and eat,” said Daniel D’Aprile, 61, who today helms the independent grocery, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Vito, an Italian immigrant who opened the first D&D Market in downtown Hartford in 1932, and his father Achille, who worked side by side with his father Vito at the family business.
In the early decades, D&D Market flourished as one of many mom-and-pop grocery businesses that served the city’s east end neighborhood. Its shelves were lined with popular American food products as well as those imported from Italy, including cheeses, canned tomatoes, pastas and balsamic vinegars, including a D’Aprile brand started by Vito.
Many of those products remain top sellers and supplier relationships established by his grandfather span generations and are ongoing, said Daniel D’Aprile.
Those historic ties have been particularly significant during the pandemic, which helped D&D Market avoid the kinds of supply chain disruptions that most grocers, large and small, have experienced.
“We’ve had plenty of product through the whole pandemic,” Daniel D’Aprile said, exempting meat selections for about a month early during the health crisis.
Proven resilient
Aside from the ongoing pandemic, D&D Market, like many independent grocers, has survived seismic changes in the grocery industry, most recently stemming from competition from large chains, discount warehouses and online platforms.
But many small grocers are thriving, often the heart of the community, with independent grocers accounting for 33% of overall U.S. grocery sales, according to the most recent statistics from the National Grocers Association (NGA).
Remaining in business doesn’t come without challenges.
“Being a Connecticut independent grocer in 2022 is not for the faint of heart,” said Wayne Pesce, president of the West Hartford-based Connecticut Food Association. “Every brick-and-mortar retailer in Connecticut faces tremendous margin pressure to operate in a state that has the highest wage and energy costs in the nation.”
But Pesce also praises the state’s independent retailers, including grocers, for their “creativity” in competing with national retailers, with grocers in particular finding innovative ways to stay competitive.
Moreover, independent grocers have proven resilient during the pandemic, which fueled record sales for the sector, a 17% average sales gain from 2020 to 2021, according to NGA statistics.
Consumers’ concerns about their safety from infection and preferring local brick-and-mortar retail venues, online offerings and the return to home cooking are among factors behind the sales surge.
“The pandemic was a boon to all food retail, but at what cost?” said Pesce. “Panic-buying, hoarding, safety protocols, product scarcities, labor shortages and supply chain disruptions were daily obstacles.”
At D&D Market, sales have nearly doubled since the pandemic began, said D’Aprile. The pandemic has not only strengthened the store’s customer relationships, but led many others to its doors, which have stayed open throughout the health crisis.
In those early months, “people panicked and were flooding the store, buying everything they could get their hands on because they were afraid there were going to be shortages,” D’Aprile said. “I was nervous we weren’t going to be able to keep up. “
Fresh ideas
D&D Market has managed past hurdles, including in 1962, for example, when its downtown Hartford location was razed to make way for Constitution Plaza. D&D Market moved to a larger, 6,000-square-foot retail space on Franklin Avenue, in the South End known as the city’s Little Italy, where in his youth, D’Aprile spent time doing odd jobs.
He officially joined the family business in the early 1980s after graduating from Morse School of Business in Hartford. He left Nichols College in Massachusetts after his freshman year when an injury benched him from playing football there.
In 1984, at age 22, he found himself at the helm of the family business, newly married to his wife, Rosanna, after both his grandfather and father suffered but survived massive heart attacks. Vito worked well into his golden years, he said, dying in 1999; Achille died in 2020 at the age of 80.
The business courses he took at Morse, D’Aprile said, enhanced his understanding of marketing, accounting and other skills he picked up from working with his grandfather and father.
“I brought the company youth and fresh ideas,” he said.
He also tinkered with the business model, expanding its line of imported products and wholesale and catering businesses, while streamlining the number of American brands that customers could find at big grocery chains.
The changes were necessary as in-store traffic at the Hartford location continued to decline as more neighborhood patrons migrated to the suburbs, he said.
“The [Hartford] store became a destination for shoppers, particularly around holidays but lacked daily customers,” he recalled.
Seven years ago, D&D Market joined the migration in its move to Wethersfield, where his family lives, and to a location that had previously been owned by its only nearby competitor carrying imported Italian food products. Another reason for the move was the growing cost of doing business from Hartford’s high commercial property tax rate, D’Aprile said, and he had been eyeing the Wethersfield property for years.
The transition has been successful, with revenues growing about 40% prior to the pandemic, he said, and with imported products now making up about 70% of all products carried, a mix updated to meet evolving customer palates, including a complete line of gluten-free pastas.
“I would have never thought that possible,” he said. “It tastes like real pasta.”
Next generations
D’Aprile’s daughter Lisa has been in charge of the store’s website and social media accounts, which include Twitter and Facebook, for the past decade to alert customers to new products and specials. But D’Aprile said the store continues to emphasize the customer experience, with the butcher shop, for example, providing customized cuts, or deli, hand-sliced imported cheeses.
“We actually wait on customers,” he said.
As a result of the pandemic, the market added six full-time employees to its pre-pandemic staff of 38 full-time and two part-time workers to meet rising customer demand.
In 2022, sales haven’t slowed down from the pandemic peak, D’Aprile said, though rising inflation is a problem, as well as a truck drivers’ shortage in transporting imported goods from ports. Inevitably these costs are being passed along to customers through higher prices, which he’s trying to manage.
D’Aprile said he still puts in 75- to 80-hour workweeks, but has no plans to retire. He’s enthusiastic that a fourth generation is now involved, with son-in-law Jordan Timpson recently joining the business.
Son Daniel, an attorney, is also involved behind the scenes, and there’s a promise for a fifth generation, with birth of twins Harrison and Hudson, grandsons born by Lisa and Jordan last year.
“I see a light at the end of the tunnel,” D’Aprile said of his succession planning.
