DOWNTOWN : Discount Mart Helps Grocers Cut Prices

Community Wholesale Grocers Inc., an organization established to sell grocery products at affordable prices to small market owners, has opened its flagship wholesale store near the Downtown produce markets.

The 30,000-square-foot store at 824 E. 17th St. aims to serve the many small grocers who come to the produce and wholesale districts to purchase supplies.

Although Community Wholesale Grocers Store No. 2 has been in business since the end of February, an official grand opening celebration will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday, on the second anniversary of the 1992 riots. It was the riots and subsequent efforts to rebuild the community that prompted creation of Community Wholesale Grocers Inc., by the Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment, a Koreatown-based economic development organization.

Consortium officials realized that the high prices shoppers complain about at neighborhood stores are a result of what shop owners pay for their inventory. Small stores, which spend only a few hundred dollars per week on stock, generally don’t buy enough to meet the minimum order requirements of most large wholesalers, which can require as much as $6,000 a week in purchases.

Community Wholesale Grocers opened its first store, a 12,000-square-foot warehouse, in Hawthorne in 1992, providing small grocers a place to buy a complete line of groceries, frozen foods, and health and beauty products.

Community Wholesale Grocers officials said the organization purchases its stock from local manufacturers and a major wholesaler and keeps prices down with low overhead costs. The Hawthorne store now serves about 300 of the estimated 1,600 small stores in South-Central and South Los Angeles, according to officials.

The new Downtown store already has 300 customers and expects to draw many more with its location.

“This is to serve a greater general Los Angeles,” said Sam Sohn, manager of Store No. 2. “Our business has shown a really respectable growth already. It’s been tremendous.”

The store is open from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. There are no sales to the public.

The Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment has used government and private funds, including a $440,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services, to open and operate the two stores and hopes to open four more locations by next year.