By Mirwais Haidari
For many customers in Merrylands, Sadaqat Supermarket is more than a place to buy groceries.
With products from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and other parts of Asia, it provides familiar food and a welcoming place for people from different cultural backgrounds.
Sadaqat Supermarket co-founder and owner Muhammad Ali Kazeimi said the business began in 2012 to provide international products for communities living in Australia.
“We started this supermarket in 2012,” Kazeimi said. “The goal was very simple, to provide more products from all around Asia, which is Middle Eastern, Iranian, Pakistani, Indian and Afghan.”
The supermarket offers more than 10,000 international products, including dried fruit, rice, dates, flour, lentils, frozen foods, chutneys and pickles.
“We are working 24 hours to help our people, our communities. We try to make every single customer happy,” he said.
Customers from different cultural backgrounds, including African and Asian communities, regularly visit the supermarket.
Manager Raza Qasim Zada, who has worked at Sadaqat for five years, said assisting customers is an important part of his daily work.
“Whenever they ask, we smile at them and we politely tell them in which aisle and which shelf the product is,” Qasim Zada said.
The staff can communicate in English, Urdu, Hindi, Pashto, Farsi and Hazaragi, while Kazeimi also speaks Arabic.
“Most of the customers, they come and they feel they [can] talk [in] their own language,” Qasim Zada said.
Qasim Zada said customers also return because of the supermarket’s prices, fresh products and service. Over time, staff have developed friendly relationships with regular customers.
“We are kind of friends with them,” he said.
For Kazeimi, these relationships have created memorable moments. He recalled a recent conversation with a customer who noticed that he was worried about personal and financial problems.
The customer encouraged him not to spend time worrying about problems that had not happened yet and reminded him to enjoy the present.
Kazeimi said the conversation changed the way he looked at his problems.
“He basically woke me up from something.”
He said the experience showed him that customers can sometimes teach business owners important lessons about life.
Kazeimi said Sadaqat will continue improving its service and bringing new products to the community.
“My customer is my life. I love them a lot,” he said. “Sadaqat Supermarket is your own supermarket.”
Featured image: Sadaqat Supermarket offers premium traditional dried fruits to diverse customers from all across Australia. Photo: Mirwais Haidari