NEXT POUR

Even after five decades in the beer and beverage business, John Saputo isn’t ready to walk away. If (when) he does, he’s confident the next generation is ready to run the company.

John Saputo recently met with a group of money people to sign the latest documents to take on debt for his $220 million family run beverage distribution business, Gold Coast Eagle Distributing. It was a five-year series of financial tranches for the cash-heavy business, Saputo said, calling it “more debt than you could possibly believe.”

One person in the room that day was his daughter, Andrea Saputo Cox. Recently named president and equity manager/owner of the Lakewood Ranch-based company, Saputo Cox signed the documents along with John Saputo, a longtime Longboat Key resident. “She said ‘I’m here with you; I’m totally in,’” the elder Saputo said. “That was one of the proudest moments of my life.” Both father and daughter chuckle when asked if that means the highenergy Saputo, a U.S. Marine colonel who served 32 years and won a Bronze Star for heroism, will officially retire. The answer? Not likely.

But, at 72, Saputo does intend to slow down. Or, in his words, give the stuff he doesn’t like to Saputo Cox, like HR, operations, logistics, etc. and do more of the stuff he does like to do. That revolves around seeing customers and talking about the litany of beverage products Gold Coast offers under the Anheuser-Busch/ InBev brand. “There is nothing here Andrea can’t do,” he said. “She can successfully run the entire company. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Saputo Cox, 45, isn’t shying away from being the final decision maker, but said she likes that her dad will be around to bounce ideas off and, sometimes, disagree with. “There’s pressure, but I really love that he’s still here for me when I need help. There are times when we don’t see eye to eye but we will often agree on what’s best for the business.”

Saputo Cox follows her dad into the beer and beverage business, and her grandfather, great-grandfather and an uncle, albeit in different entities selling different brands.

Her accession at Gold Coast, which serves the Sarasota and Manatee markets, comes during a time of significant upheaval in the beer and beverage industry. The pandemic is one of the culprits. At first, sales across the industry cratered, as stayat-home orders wrecked the bar and restaurant side of the business. But some states relaxed delivery and other alcohol sales rules, giving the sector a boost. Overall, according to a report from Fortune Business Insights, the global beer market is projected to grow from $786.27 billion in sales in 2021 to $989.48 billion in 2028, a compounded annual growth rate of 3.68%.

Growth Mindset

Yet challenges industrywide, in a Whac-A-Mole kind of way, continue. The list ranges from inflationinduced higher prices for everything from aluminum for cans to grains for beer to a painfully tight labor market to a carbon dioxide shortage.

Gold Coast Eagle has, for the most part, been able to stiff-arm those challenges, at least in sales growth.

The company posted $222 million in revenue in 2021, up 7.7% from $206 million in 2020. It has about 200 sales, service and support associates. That team helps process, sell and deliver 275 brands of beer, water, soda and other beverages, with some 1,500 SKUs. To illustrate how the complexity of the business has grown, Saputo points out that 25 years ago the business handled seven brands of beer and 56 direct packages or SKUs.

“It’s a grueling and complicated business,” Saputo said. “It’s so competitive now because consumer tastes are all over the board.”

Gold Coast Eagle dates back to Nov. 1, 1996, when John Saputo acquired the distributorship from the Goodman family, who had operated Twin City Distributors. Saputo is a third-generation beer wholesaler: His grandfather, Joe Barraco, ran a three-truck operation outside Detroit in the years after Prohibition, where Saputo and his brothers worked and learned the business. The beer wasn’t part of the Anheuser-Busch family, Saputo notes, adding he and his brothers were paid in experience, not necessarily making enough money to go into the business for themselves. But Saputo stuck with it, and eventually managed or owned distributorships in Michigan, New York and North Carolina before coming to Florida.

Part of Gold Coast Eagle’s growth stems from the Sarasota-Bradenton population boom of the last 25 years: more people, more beer drinkers. (The company sold 3.4 million cases of beer in 1996 and 6.5 million cases in 2022 — up 91.17%.)

Another key in the company’s success? Its state-of-the-art headquarters and hospitality center on the Sarasota County side of Lakewood Ranch, in the corporate park. The facility, on a 23-acre site, includes a tasting room, rotunda, beer garden and conference room that holds up to 200 people. The company has opened the facility to dozens of nonprofits and charitable organizations

Family Time

Key players in Gold Coast Eagle Distributing

John Saputo: More than 50 years in the business, including going back to when he was 8 years old, working for his grandfather’s threetruck operation outside Detroit.

Andrea Saputo Cox: One of the four daughters Saputo raised with his wife, Denise. Andrea Saputo Cox, like her dad, started working in the beverage distribution business while growing up. She earned her enquiry certificate in the Anheuser-Busch/InBev system, reaching the highest-level of corporate ownership requirements.

While Saputo never doubted her abilities, his belief in Andrea was cemented in 2003, when he left the company to head overseas for reserve duty for the Marines during Operation Enduring Freedom. That’s when, at 27, Saputo Cox earned her equity certificate — a complicated and stringent process AnheuserBusch/InBev puts all its owners through, to make sure they can handle the nuances of the business.

TheRev.Dr.NormanPritchard

Men’sBibleStudy:Monday@9:00

Women’sBibleStudy:Wednesday@10:00 to host events, and county officials have used it as a staging area during hurricanes or similar weather situations. John Saputo said his affinity for giving back stems from a lesson learned from his father, that to “build your business, first build your community.”

‘EVERY SEAT’

Saputo Cox is one of four sisters raised by John Saputo and his wife, Denise. The youngest sister, Bethany Dugger, lives in Ohio, where her husband, Devyn Dugger, is the equity manager of Dickerson Distributing. Saputo acquired Dickerson, north of Cincinnati, in 2014. The oldest sisters, twins Katherine Tanner and Sarah Mackie, aren’t in the beverage business.

Saputo Cox started early, when she was 12 or 13 years old, cleaning out truck bays and washing tires when vehicles returned from daily deliveries. That was in summers during middle school — Saputo recalls her also circling around the warehouse in rollerblades, too. She was promoted to reconciling truck loads and office work the following summer.

By the time Saputo Cox graduated from high school and the University of Florida, she had her own merchandising route. She then moved through all positions in the company, from pricing, graphics, sales, warehouse, sales management, operations and finance to human resources, community outreach and marketing. She’s handled sales for small bars and big grocery stores. “I sat in every seat in the company,” she said, “to learn it all.”

The business didn’t miss a beat under Saputo Cox. “A regional Southeast vice president called me when I got back,” Saputo said, “and said ‘We knew she was good, but we didn’t know she could run the whole company.’”

NEXT UP

Saputo Cox took a decade or so off to raise two kids, who are now in high school. She came back to the business in spring 2020. Hugh Shields, a 19-year Gold Coast Eagle employee who handles marketing administration, in addition to many other front-facing tasks, said Saputo Cox’s return was a big win for the business.

“I begged her every day for 10 years to come back,” Shields quips.

Not that John Saputo couldn’t handle the business, but Saputo Cox’s calm demeanor mixed with highlevel work ethic, especially during the topsy-turvy, post-pandemic era, has become a rallying point for the company. “In the beverage business you have to be able to put a case on a shelf or load a pallet,” Shields said, along with all the other administrative tasks. “She’s definitely the kind of person who leads by example. She will never ask someone to do something she hasn’t done herself.”

Saputo Cox is one of seven women to have a leadership role among the 450 distributorships in the Anheuser-Busch InBev network.

For that, the parent company often reaches out to Saputo Cox for insight into women’s sales habits, while her biological parent said he tries to stay in the background — as much as a Type A executive and father can.

“It’s fun. I get to see her make decisions that I would’ve made,” he said. “It’s like being driven in a car where I just get to sit back, have a beer and relax.”

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