Longo’s Brothers Fruit Market (“Longo’s”) is a family-owned Canadian grocer that started in 1956 when three brothers, Tommy, Joe, and Gus opened their first fruit market. What began as a small family-run store has since grown to a company that operates 36 stores in communities across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, as well as Grocery Gateway, the leader in online sales of home-delivered groceries in the region.
Today, Longo’s maintains the same family-based values as it did over 60 years ago, putting Family Standards at the heart of everything they do. Longo’s is proud to serve their Guests the quality standard of food we believe every family deserves, and to give back to the communities we operate in through the Longo’s Family Charitable Foundation.
In January 2021, Longo’s was recognized as the number one Grocery Retailer in the 2020 Ontario Leger WOW study. The study revealed that customers consistently provided high rankings for Longo’s ambiance, product quality, check-out efficiency, curb appeal, customer importance, and staff courtesy.
In addition to the broader categories of satisfaction, Longo’s was recognized by customers for their approach to health and safety measures implemented during the pandemic. When it matters most, more than two-thirds of Longo’s customers reported being able to shop freely without being afraid to touch items in the store.
“We know everyone is feeling the pressures of the pandemic, and Longo’s wants to ensure we provide an experience that feels both welcoming and safe for our Team Members and Guests,” said Anthony Longo. “We make every effort to ensure each visit to our stores for essential needs can be as pleasant as possible during these times and always,” said Anthony Longo, President, and CEO at Longo’s.
As a Certainty client, we congratulate Longo’s on this enormous achievement and take pride in being a small part of this success. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Longo’s was looking to improve how they collected and reported business performance data across their stores and chose Certainty to help with their health & safety inspections and reporting.
Initially, Longo’s used Certainty for health and safety audits and daily inspections. According to Daniel Girardi, Continuous Improvement Analyst at Longo’s, “Certainty is now used for various areas of our business for internal control documents, inspections and benchmarks”.
“The benefit of us using Certainty is the simplicity of the software from an end-user perspective. We also love the ability to take/ add pictures which are useful in documenting infractions during our audits. Certainty also has great reporting features which are generated in real-time allowing the accuracy of completion. This allows us to analyze the data from the checklists completed to see trends and areas that require more focus”, says Kate Reid, Manager, Safety & Security.
Marija Velletri, Safety & Security Specialist at Longo’s also added that “Certainty supports us with accountability on closing out any areas for improvement throughout all locations accordingly through corrective action functions. The ability of notifications is extremely useful to immediately alert senior management in high-risk situations to quickly resolve any concerns”.
Certainty is used now across Longo’s business for a wide range of audits, inspections and business performance reporting, and corrective action management activities including:
- Continuous Improvement Benchmarks
- Health & Safety Store Inspections
- Store Safety Checkups
- Kitchen Inspections
- Food Safety Inspections
- Daily Health Screening checks
- Grocery Gateway Inspections
- Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Audits
- Safety and Security Audits
- Sweep Logs
- Temperature Logs
- Pre-operational Inspections
- COVID Pandemic Cleaning Logs
At Certainty, we are proud to be a part of this story and look forward to continuing to support Longo’s efforts to remain one of the best and most trusted grocery retailers in Canada. Congratulations to the entire team at Longo’s!
