Policies and Practices of Some Leading Institutional Wholesale Grocers

Excerpts from the report Introduction: Institutional grocery wholesaling is a function of food distribution in which carload and truckload shipments of food and related products are procured from packers, manufacturers, and other suppliers, moved into a warehouse, stored, and then sold and delivered to food service institutions. These operations require a vast amount of physical handling, coordination of wholesaling and food service functions, and detailed record keeping. Among the types of food service customers supplied by institutional grocery wholesalers are airline caterers, amusement park concessionaires, ball parks, cafeterias, caterers, dairy bars, drive-ins, governmental institutions and establishments, hospitals, hotels, in-plant feeding establishments, motels, public and private clubs, restaurants, river boats, schools, soda fountains, and summer camps. These customers vary in size from multimillion dollar operations to annual sales volumes of less than a thousand dollars. Services such as personal sales calls, delivery, and supplier credit are usually extended to food service customers. The primary objectives of this study were: (1) To define the operating policies and practices of some successful institutional wholesalers; and (2) to ascertain what services wholesalers are extending to customers to help them operate more efficiently and effectively.