business & rofessional
Brand New
Bag
Leave your grocery shopping to the new
and improved middle man.
Lynne Konstantin
Contributing Writer
G
rowing up in Trenton, Kevin
Mittleman remembers his moth-
er having to make weekly trips to
Detroit to buy kosher meat for her family.
"We were one of seven or eight Jewish
families in the area — other kids weren't
allowed to play with us — until we moved
to Oak Park',' he says.
Perhaps it's his recollection of his work-
ing mother having to go to great lengths
to get the specific groceries she wanted
for her family; perhaps it's his skill and
passion for choosing the perfect meats
and produce, which the self-professed
"grocery nerd" has finessed over the
course of 25 years in the grocery business
— probably it's the combination that has
propelled him to team with business part-
ner Daniel Newman in October to create
Groceries2you, a personal shopping and
delivery service based in Waterford. "But
we'll shop and deliver anywhere our clients
want us," Mittleman, 51, points out.
In his 20s, Mittleman's mom remarried
and honeymooned in San Diego, where
she ended up buying a Swensen's Ice
Cream Parlor, so Mittleman came out to
help. In the same plaza was a Vons grocery
store, which is now the southern California
division of Safeway. Starting out as a bag-
ger, Mittleman worked his way through the
company, as a clerk, assistant manager and
ultimately as a store manager. He met his
now ex-wife when they were both cashiers.
"She tells people that my line was always
Kevin Mittleman shops where his customers choose and prides himself on excellent
customer service.
the longest because people waited to be in
my line,' says Mittleman. "I tried to make it
fun, and customer service is my forte."
Later, when starting their family, he
came up with an idea for a grocery-
delivery business. "I was waiting to hear
whether I got a promotion at work:' he
says. "I made up fliers for the new busi-
ness, and said, 'If the job doesn't come up
by Friday, then on Saturday, I'll be out put-
ting the fliers up all over town. And Friday
I got the job."
So his idea fell by the wayside until a
few years ago, when the now-single father
and grandfather moved to a job in Florida
at Publix, the largest employee-owned gro-
cery chain in the country.
Returning to his native Michigan to
work for his sister's building company
in East Lansing before heading to Metro
Detroit, Mittleman started to rethink his
grocery plan. "Returning to Michigan and
the Jewish community in Metro Detroit
has been amazing for me',' says Mittleman,
whose license plate is personalized with
"TM HOME."
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