Competition

There is only one other place to get extremely basic groceries and liquor on the Island, Wazz’s Party Plus. Wazz’s offered gas, liquor, a small selection of groceries, take-out homemade pizza, sub sandwiches and Chester Fried Chicken. This business was recently sold by the Michael and Dawn Wasnich, who established it, to Blarney Castle Oil, a company with a chain of gas station convenience stores in northern lower Michigan side of the Peninsula. The store will be re-named Drummond Island EZ Mart. They will not have a liquor or lottery license until their applications are approved by the State of Michigan, which will take time given the COVID 19 Virus restrictions.

Other competitors

De Tour Village has a small grocery store, Sune’s Food Center, which was part of Sune’s originally but has changed ownership. This is the next closest grocery store. It offers the same selections and services as the original Sune’s. There are a handful of other small grocery stores scattered around the Eastern Upper Peninsula, however most are inconveniently located from the major roads.  Sault Ste. Marie, St. Ignace and Petoskey have the large box chain stores such as Walmart, Meijer, and Save-A-Lot. These large businesses have the advantage of scale and deep pockets to enable them to undercut prices for any length of time necessary to gain more market share and customer wallet share. Additionally, they have the advantage of scale and therefore offer more selections and sizes than a small grocery store can complete with. They offer shopping “experiences,” which are also attractive to remote, isolated people.