wow, i am surprised that you would say soething like that having zero knowledge of how this distributor has been treating us over the years.
lets see, we used to get our pizza boxes thru the ‘little guy’, but he kept sending us bundles that looked like he ran the forks of a fork lift thru them, and the plastic sheath were half ripped off and dirty…hmm, cant sell those, so i cant get boxes thru him…US foods to the rescue
also, we used to use the ‘little guy’ for our cheese. then we started getting cheese that hadnt been aged long enough, green, and wouldnt melt right. a call to my trusty ‘little guy’ results in him telling us that we should use his ‘old secret’ which is to leave the cheese sitting out on the counter over night, and that’s speed up the aging process. hmm, isnt there a reason that the packages say “dairy product, keep refridgerated”?. ok, not we cant trust this joker to get dairy thru, cause who knows how often he uses his little “secret” before we get the product? i cant risk getting customers sick just so i can support his shoddy business practices.
and then, we used to get our canadian bacon thru this guy…but the rolls would be gauged and told, so the juices would be leaking out when they were delivered…yep, his refridgerated box truck doesnt get all that cold, so the stuff that was supposed to be near-frozen, was nice and thawed out by the time they got to us…cant serve that to customers, us food to the rescue.
oh, and there was the fontaninni products we were getting from him…specialty spicy sausage and meatballs. he never could get them in on a consistent basis. we would even tell him WEEKS in advance before we needed them, but he always seemed to have forgotten to put the order to them in on time. i cant run my business based on inconsistency like that, so again, us foods gets my money.
so, pizzatime, i suggest you put your internet muscles away and take the time to get more info about a situation before you wanna get righteous
-tyson
pizzatime:
tyson:
yep, i reminded the regional sales rep of all those things when i had my chat with her earlier this week.
to make a long story short, we use 2 distributors to get our supplies for our shop. one is US foods and the other is a smaller “one man show” type of company. we get the majority of our supplies from US foods, but use the other small one for specialty items such as meats and stanislaus product.
the mom and pop distributor just decided to stop delivering to our area (been delivering to us for 25 years, mind you). his decision was based on another client in our area that he “lost the contract” on. so, he decides that he’s not coming anymore. no offer to come less frequently, no offer to work out some type of arrangement…nothing…and we find out from the delivery guy, not even the owner. :roll:
so fine, i think thats a bonehead move, but oh well. i call my rep at us foods to see about getting them to bring in stanislaus stuff for us. he says, no prob, our buyer brings in stanislaus for a few other clients. then i get a call from my rep at us foods saying the buyer cant process getting us setup until a get a ‘purchase agreement’ from stanislaus. odd, but alright. i call, get told that they dont like selling to us foods because they are “too big” and that they look out for the little guy, like my mom and pop distributor. they said they would make an exception for us if we would commit to buying 2000 cases per year. we currently only go through about 500-600 per year. so i say, “you’re willing to lose a customer that has been loyal for 25 years to another manufacturer?” she says “i guess so”
so, in the end, stanislaus is commited to protecting shoddy small independent ditributors like the one i was using, above helping and supporting the real reason distributors carry the product in the first place…guys like us that feed the stuff to their customers.
ok, my rant is done :roll:
You are speaking from both sides of your mouth. Maybe, if you were loyal to the “little” distributor instead of throwing the majority of your money at US foods, the “little” guy would still be able to deliver in your area.
