ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- With homes and businesses going on their third day without power, Food businesses have been especially vulnerable to the outages.

"The biggest things that affected us were the power-lines were down covering up our entrance way, so it was hard for customers to get in and out of the store."

But this Valli Produce store in Loves Park remains open despite the outage. Monday's storm didn't spoil their food or power supply .

" With our generator there is only a 10 second delay, the generator is back up and running we do have to go and check and make sure all the refrigerated cases come back up."

"Watching one million perishable items perish would have been a costly loss one reason the store invested in a generator from the beginning.

"It was put up the day the building was built over 20 years ago."

As customers scramble to save what they can, Preston says it's something you really don't want to push.

"Ice cream that's one of the first thing your always going to check. once it loses its solid consistency, its done. It's a matter of a couple hours for meat; Your frozen items, they will last a little bit longer."