I
Health & Fitness
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00D
Feeding A
Need
Hiller's supermarkets stock up on
Michigan-made products to boost
the local economy.
Robin Schwartz
Special to the Jewish News
S
hopping carts rattle by amid the
buzz of daily business at Hiller's
Markets. It's mid-afternoon on
a Tuesday and the store on Maple and
Orchard Lake roads in West Bloomfield is
packed with regulars.
Justin Hiller, 28, the company's vice
president and grandson of the supermar-
ket chain's late founder, Sid Hiller, breezes
through the aisles on a mission to point
out Michigan-made products. He doesn't
have to go far. There are hundreds of them
mixed in among the milk, bread, cereal
and other staples.
"Every department has a local com-
pany," Hiller explains. "In the dairy aisle,
we sell Guernsey's and Bareman's milk; in
the pop aisle, we have Faygo; 50 percent
of our meat is purchased in Michigan.
During the summer months, 80 percent of
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PASTRIES
the produce is grown here."
Plenty of local Jewish family business-
es are also represented on Hiller's shelves,
from Morris Poultry in Hazel Park to
Greenfield Noodle & Specialty in Detroit;
Yossi's Israeli Cuisine in West Bloomfield
(see sidebar); Ma Cohen's Herring and
United Fish Distributors, both Detroit-
based companies. Local items account for
5-7 percent of the company's total grocery
sales each year.
"What we try to do is have a full spec-
trum of products in every department that
are locally owned and operate d ;' Hiller said,
adding they taste-test everything before
they agree to sell it. "We invest in Michigan
because we're a part of it. If we purchase
products made in Michigan, the money
goes back to Michigan and that's how we
boost our own economy"
Founded in 1941, Hiller's now has more
than 800 employees and seven locations:
Berkley, Ann Arbor, West Bloomfield,
Justin Hiller at the Polly's Pastries and Rumi's Passion displays
"We invest in Michigan because we're a part of
it. If we purchase products made in Michigan,
the money goes back to Michigan and that's
how we boost our own economy."
— Justin Hiller
Feeding Need on page 26
"Right now, because
of the slow economy,
people are spending
less money going
to restaurants. But,
they have to go to the
supermarket and they
have to eat. So instead
of waiting for them,
I'm bringing the food
to the supermarkets."
— Yossi Benjamin
Yossi's Goes
To Market
f
1:izette and Yossi Benjamin with
their fresh products at Hiller's.
e spends as much time in the
kitchen as he ever did (possibly
more), but these days restaurant
owner Yossi Benjamin is busy cooking up
new ideas to keep his business afloat in
this tough economy.
The Haifa native who now lives in
Farmington Hills is reaching out to con-
sumers beyond the four walls of his cozy
Israeli restaurant on Orchard Lake Road
in West Bloomfield. His new line of fresh,
homemade, packaged Israeli foods can
now be found on the shelves of Hiller's,
Papa Joe's and the Market Basket of
Franklin. His lentil soup, majadara, hum-
mus, babaganush and eggplant in tomato
Yossi on page 26
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