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Beverage Distributors Inc.

BEVERAGE DISTRIBUTORS AIMS HIGH WITH UNMATCHED SERVICE

Beverage Distributors Inc.

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Beverage Distributors

Aims High with Unmatched Service Written by: Sasha Orman Produced by: Shannon Civitarese >>>

Beverage Distributors changes its techniques – but never its values – as it strives to be Northeast Ohio’s distributor of choice

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Beverage Distributors Inc. Aims High with Unmatched Service

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very business experiences change.

Especially when a business has seen eighty years and three generations of ownership – evolution in some sense is inevitable. But at Beverage Distributors., the important thing isn’t that change has happened, but how it’s happened. While the Cleveland-based beverage distributor has made it a point to change with the beer trends and consumer preferences of the times, one thing that has never changed is the core values that the company was built on all those years ago.

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Pride in Friendly Service In the beverage distribution industry, having a portfolio of great beer is a must – but it will only carry you so far. It’s up to the business to carry itself the rest of the way to success, and Beverage Distributors does it with a firm commitment to customer service that keeps clients coming back.

“In all the years that we’ve been in existence, we’ve always taken pride in the fact that we’re a very service oriented distributorship,” says Beverage Distributors Personnel Director Ron Natola, has who been a loyal employee with the company for the last thirty years. “That’s what built us: we have the best beer portfolio in the city, and our service is bar none.

It’s impeccable, and we haven’t varied from that – it was right from the very start.”

That customer service doesn’t begin and end with delivery drivers, either: it’s a commitment that permeates throughout the company from the executive level to sales reps to receptionists. “I would say that what we’ve always been built on here at Beverage Distributors is our relationships, and that’s based on giving people good service over eighty years,” says Mike Conway, Beverage

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Distributors’s President. “It really creates those relationships with your retailers and suppliers, to where they want to do business with you. That’s why we continue to gain business from the people of Cleveland and our whole territory.”

As Conway relates, a positive attitude is a huge part of the job that’s taken seriously at Beverage Distributors across all positions, but it’s for a very important reason.

“Every account deals with our sales reps – but they also deal with the friendly driver who’s willing A Family Environment to help you shovel the walk if it’s “Beverage Distributors has a snowy outside, or the front office unique culture of employees, employee who’s friendly and nice and we hire a unique culture to deal with when you call in,” of employees,” says Conway. he explains. “Everyone in our “Everyone here is a very company has a customer service personable and positive and job, and everyone in this entire friendly person that creates a family company is someone that I’d be atmosphere here at Beverage.” comfortable speaking to any one of 5

OUR STAR BOTTLE IS HERE. WE BROUGHT HEINEKEN TO CELEBRATE.

Brewed in Holland. Imported by Heineken USA Inc., New York, NY. ©2013

Beverage Distributors Inc.

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Aims High with Unmatched Service Supplier Profile

changed and we have many more WDM Group suppliers at Beverage Distributors than we’ve had in past years. The Employees: >50 demands of the job have changed Established: 2007 along with that – it’s become a Industry: Advertising more difficult job – so we did take a step back and take a look at Services: Digital Publications what we’re asking our drivers to do out in the market.”

Website: www.wdmgroup.com The result of that assessment was a radical change from the usual five day workweek at eight hours a day to a four day workweek with ten hour days, a move that has helped Beverage Distributors make gains in both Visit us online: sustainability and quality of life for its employees.

“Trucks take a lot of gas to our accounts.” run – when you’re going these Beverage Distributors calls long distances to deliver beer, for a family atmosphere among you’d rather take out more beer its employees, and in return it and spend more time per day treats its employees like family, than have all the trucks going exemplified by the company’s out every day, and 4-10 routes recent assessment of the job are invariably going to burn less its drivers do every day on the natural resources and pollute the streets of Cleveland and Cuyahoga environment less,” notes Conway.

County.

“So it’s a savings in gas, but it’s “Just like our brands of beers also sustainable for the employees have changed, the demands themselves – people don’t realize of the job have changed,” says how taxing physically it is for our Natola. “Where it used to be a drivers. Having three days off is predominantly Stroh’s house, just one more day per week that then Miller, the landscape has these guys have for their bodies to

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Beverage Distributors Inc. Aims High with Unmatched Service

rest and recuperate and get back to the strength that they need.”

of a strategic portfolio: we really try and bring in brands that we believe are going to help us grow over a The Distributor of Choice long period. What I really look for is Changes have come to Beverage brands that will either enhance the Distributors – within the past two current portfolio we already have, years, the company has expanded or brands that add something to its reach from Cuyahoga Country our portfolio that we don’t already to ten counties throughout have.” northeastern Ohio. It has also It’s all part of Beverage started to bring regional craft beers Distributors’s mission to be the and specialty brews on board, distributor of choice for its region. albeit with a discerning eye.

“We want to be the distributor of “A lot of distributors now see choice in multiple ways,” says the growth in craft, so they’ll Conway. “Distributor of choice to bring in any single craft brewery our retailers, our current suppliers, that bats an eye at them,” says new breweries coming into the area Conway. “Our plan in place is more looking for a distributor, and also to 8

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STATISTICS

Industry: Beer Wholesaler Founded: 1933 Headquarters: Cleveland, OH Key People/Titles: Mike Conway – President Jim Conway – CEO Tom Caito – Vice President of Sales Ron Natola – Personnel Director our employees, people looking for employment, and people in the industry.”

That last part is just as important as the rest – after all, if service is the backbone of the business then it all starts with a strong team to deliver it. “We want to be the distributor of choice for people who want a good job in the beer industry?, so that we can have the best of the best work here,” Conway adds. “Being their distributor of choice means that they enjoy working here and they want to work here, and that’s why we all go the extra mile to do what we do.”

Products: Miller, HeinekenUSA, Diageo-Guinness, Boston Beer Co., Mark Anthony, Buckeye Brewing, Rivertowne Brewing, Griffin Cider Works, Rehive Ale, Ohio Brewing, and Full Sail Revenue: $58 million Employees: 115 Website: www.beveragedist.com

Visit us online:

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Beverage Distributors Inc. 3800 King Avenue Cleveland, OH 44114 T: 216-431-1600 www.beveragedist.com