Floods
On Thursday 15 July 2021, the town of La-Roche-en-Ardenne was severely affected by the heavy rain and subsequent flooding that hit part of Wallonia. It did not spare the Spar Colruyt Group store of independent entrepreneur Philippe Massoz. "Two of my co-workers and I were present when the water started entering the building. It went up to 1.60 m high on the ground floor," Philippe Massoz explains. "We could only enter the store on Saturday morning. The building itself did not suffer too much, but the commercial area was destroyed, so we had to throw everything away. Only the floor was left." All the refrigerators, freezers and wooden furniture had to be disposed of and the local supermarket lost all its goods. "That was the worst moment. The seasonal peak runs from 15 July to 15 August. We completely missed it and we lost the entire stock that was also at its peak."
Renovation and reopening
During the past month, the team of Spar La-Roche-en-Ardenne has been working with unremitting zeal to get the shop up and running again to be able to welcome back their customers as soon as possible. "We have replaced everything and done our utmost to make the store presentable and functional again. It was extremely hard to find refrigerators due to the health crisis, and the holiday of the construction sector made this task even more challenging. We still have to do some small works after the opening, but we have achieved our goal. A few more sleepless nights and we will be ready to reopen on 19 August."
Cooperation with Retail Partners Colruyt Group
Together with their colleagues from Retail Partners Colruyt Group, the team of the Spar in La-Roche-en-Ardenne managed to reopen only one month after the forced closure. Retail Partners Colruyt Group S.A. encompasses all Colruyt Group's activities for the independent entrepreneurs. This company proposes unique and customised partnerships and supports its partners so they can devote themselves completely to their customers. "The cooperation with the Retail Partners Colruyt Group team was impeccable. They changed their whole agenda to give priority to two stores hit by the floods: Rochefort and us. Without them and without the store co-workers, we would not have been able to reopen." Philippe Massoz and his team wish to express their sympathy to the community and the neighbourhood affected by the bad weather and are happy to welcome you back to their store as from Thursday 19 August.
