We pride ourselves on going to great lengths in order to provide each of the communities that we serve with the flavors that they love and recall from “back home.” In fact, it is our passion! We devote aisles of space to international and mainstream groceries, dairy/frozen items, a full-service fish market within most of our stores and a custom cutting meat department. Our stores are located in many different neighborhoods, each vibrant with numerous ethnicities and nationalities, and their corresponding cultures and flavors.

In addition, we make it our priority to enter so-called “underserved” communities that other major supermarket chains flee from. While those chains may not be interested in providing these communities with high-quality products at low prices, we make it our duty because we know that everybody deserves to feed their families with high-quality, affordable food.

We don’t just sell groceries. Instead, we take the time to learn the intricacies of the many cultures that we serve. Not every community is the same. Thus, as examples, we are able to provide the Peruvian family with papa seca in order to make a comforting dish of carapulca and the Guatemalan family with plantains in order to create rellenitos de platano. If a family from Mexico requires huitlacoche to make tamales the way they did back home, we actively seek it out and provide it! We understand that “Home” is not just a fading memory of a distant land, but something that can be re-created and experienced every night at the family dinner table. That’s why we’re always searching for new connections throughout the world in order to bring the highest-quality ingredients to our customers. And when these tenacious efforts are successful, it makes us feel that we have given special meaning to the phrase “Welcome Home.”

While we take a great deal of joy in tracking down hard to find items from all over the world, we also provide staple items, which can be found in most mainstream supermarkets. We have our own line of high-quality products under the Bogopa Private Label, such as macaroni and cheese, rice, canned mixed vegetables and tomato ketchup, to name just a few. So we are able to serve as a one-stop shopping experience for our customers.

Our Family

We believe that our most important resource is our employees. Regardless of whatever else we may do right, we recognize that if we do not support and develop our employees, our business cannot survive. Therefore, we compensate our family of employees competitively. We provide health coverage that is funded 100% by the company, paid vacations, sick days, personal days and skills training classes. In addition, our department managers and higher management representatives participate in an annual, leadership conference located at an area resort. Some of the other programs we provide for our employees include: the monthly Employee Newsletter, a Wellness Program, Employee Birthday Celebrations, the Bogopa Soccer Tournament, the Employee Holiday Party and the annual Bogopa Family Picnic.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, religion, disability or any protected classification. Our Bogopa Corporate Code of Ethical Conduct guides all of our employees. We respect the efforts of our employees, and fully expect them to respect the customers, vendors/suppliers and each other. For this to happen consistently, we know that we must uphold the Code in all of our dealings with them.

Our Culture

Our culture is one of hard work and a deep commitment to serve the rapidly growing, and often neglected, diverse ethnic communities within the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metropolitan areas. As one of the leading, privately owned, ethnic supermarkets in the northeast, we have an insatiable drive to “get the job done” with respect to tracking down hard to find items for our customers.

Our Corporate Core values have emerged from our Mission Statement and from our Bogopa Culture. They can best be summarized by four words: Value, Variety, Vitality and Vision.

VALUE
We are committed to providing our customers with the highest-quality fresh food at a competitive price point. For us, “fresh” is not just a word, but a passion. Our motto is: if we wouldn’t buy it for our families, we won’t sell it to yours.

VARIETY
We take immense pride in offering our customers the widest possible selection of uniquely ethnic food from all over the globe, as well as an extensive selection of mainstream products.

VITALITY
We go to great lengths to ensure that our customers truly enjoy shopping with us. We are constantly improving upon the Bogopa experience by incorporating state-of-the-art technology from touch-screen registers for the cashiers to handheld UPC scanners for employees on the floor. We also believe that shopping should not feel like a chore, so we provide many exciting promotions and sample tastings to awaken our customers to the many wonderful alternatives they have when preparing their next meal.

VISION
Not only do we have the vision to anticipate the ever changing needs of our customers, but we also have the vision to support the communities in which we operate. We do this in a variety of different ways such as providing college scholarships to outstanding graduating high school students in the communities we serve, donating food and supplies to local grassroots organizations and partnering with local agencies and non-profit companies to provide food and medical care to underprivileged individuals. We firmly believe that all businesses owe an immense debt to their surrounding communities, and that no business can thrive without first helping its community to thrive.

Our Community

We know that to be a decent corporate citizen we must be a good neighbor to our customers. Good neighbors try their best to help out their neighbors. We have learned that the neighborhoods we operate in are filled with local organizations that are experts at assisting underserved individuals within their own areas. Recognizing this, we regularly partner with numerous local organizations including religious, not-for-profit, educational, law enforcement, public housing, healthcare institutions, senior citizen groups, small business groups and community boards by providing them with substantial food donations year-round in support of their numerous initiatives.

The following is a partial list of the organizations that Bogopa has assisted over the years:

• Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals
   
• Parent Association of P.S. 811Q
   
• Women In Need, Inc.
   
• Community Board #4 in Brooklyn
   
• Lefrak City Tenant’s Association
   
• Learning Angels After School Homework Assistance Program
   
• Marcus Garvey Park Village Houses Tenant Association
   
• P.S. 73 the Thomas S. Boyland School
   
• Bushwick Economic Development Corporation
   
• New York City Housing Authority
   
• Blessed Sacrament Church
   
• St. Aloysius Church
   
• 83rd Precinct Community Council
   
• Lefrak Merchants Association and the Bushwick Mental Health Center

Good neighbors also do what they can to have a positive impact on the youth in their communities. We do this through our annual high school seniors’ college scholarship program. Since 2001, this program has grown to offer two, four-year scholarships per year to each of the following high schools: William H. Taft High School, Franklin K. Lane High School, Thomas Jefferson High School, William H. Maxwell Vocational High School, East New York Transit Technology High School, Automotive Career and Technical Education High School, Harry Van Arsdale High School, Bushwick High School, Memorial High School, St. Joseph’s High School and Newtown High School.

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