Posts Tagged “Associated Wholesale Grocers”
Associated Wholesale Grocers of Kansas City, KS plans to complete a new distribution hub in Hernando, MS., in 2023.
AWG decided to undertake the project following a review of the company’s growth trajectory and the capabilities and sustainability of its current facilities, according to a news release.
“Our industry is ever-changing, and it is our mission to provide our member-retailers all of the products, services and tools they need to compete favorably in all markets served, all at the best possible cost,” CEO David Smith said in the release. “This new facility has capabilities that checks all of those boxes. We are excited to be able to significantly expand what we stock and ship to our member stores while becoming more efficient and cost-effective in our operations.
“This new facility will be a critical component in our plan to build a safer, better and more efficient supply chain,” Smith said. “In addition to becoming the primary supply source for the region, we will also leverage this new operation as an expanded variety source to all of our facilities and member stores. This will create more value throughout the supply chain for AWG and our members.”
Operations from two distribution centers in the area — in Memphis, TN., and in Southaven, MS. — will eventually be consolidated into the new facility.
The plans are subject to incentives approval, which is being finalized with local and state leaders.
AWG has partnered with Witron, which specializes in creating food warehouse automation and order picking systems, on the project.
“The Witron system is integrated into every area of the new facility; the handling of case and pallet goods, ambient temperature, refrigerated perishables and frozen foods, as well as the handling of individual unit products,” AWG wrote. “This will increase throughput of products, increase efficiencies, improve accuracy and reduce loss due to damaged goods.”
“This in turn will allow AWG and member stores to realize savings across transportation, inventory management, as well as experience enhanced pick accuracy and lower salvage rates,” AWG wrote. “All of this will result in cost savings for AWG members while still maximizing the integrity and safety of the food supply chain.”
Associated Wholesale Grocers and Affiliated Foods Midwest Cooperative plan to merge their distribution businesses.
The transaction, which is subject to the approval of Affiliated Foods Midwest shareholders, is expected to close later this year, according to a news release.
“This exciting endeavor is exactly what we need to allow our retailers to compete, grow and be profitable,” Martin Arter, president and CEO of Affiliated Foods Midwest, said in the release.
Associated Wholesale Grocers currently supplies members that operate more than 3,000 stores in 30 states. Affiliated Foods Midwest supplies members that operate more than 800 stores in 15 states.
Barring any changes, members of both cooperatives will be members of Associated Wholesale Grocers when the deal is finalized.
“Expanding our collective distribution areas into several new adjoining states and adding over 800 new member stores will make our unified cooperatives stronger together, leveraging not only the additional scale and buying power but also employing and implementing the best practices of each that have been developed over the 80 to 90 years that our respective cooperatives have been in business,” David Smith, president and CEO of Associated Wholesale Grocers, said in the release.
About AWG
Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG) is a retailer-owned cooperative serving retail member stores with a complete assortment of grocery, fresh meat, fresh produce, specialty foods, health care, and general merchandise items. AWG has an extensive distribution network and nine distribution centers which serve retail outlets in over 26 states. AWG provides its retail members, many of them family-owned businesses, with assistance in establishing a strategic position in their marketplace that builds upon their unique strengths. Our procurement and marketing departments are positioned to assist members in developing plans to excel in virtually any effort, and resources are structured to provide support services that allow members the best opportunity to win at retail.
AWG has been distributing success since 1924 and sales have grown steadily since then. (Click the history tab below to learn more.) Once again, 2015 was a record year for AWG with sales reaching $8.94 billon.
About AFWC
The AFWC story began in 1931 when a group of independent grocers near Plainview, Nebraska, joined together to form a wholesale buying group. Its founders built a business model in the cooperative spirit and continues the same business practices today – focusing on the independent grocer.
Affiliated Foods Midwest is a retailers’ cooperative based in Norfolk, Nebraska and Elwood, Kansas and serving the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan. Affiliated Foods Midwest built a new distribution center in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2009.
A federal judge approved a $25 million settlement that completes one chapter of a five-year long antitrust battle over the nation’s potato market being manipulated by a potato cartel.
Consumers will get $5.5 million and grocers $19.5 million. Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted final approval of the settlement on December 14.
Potato buyer Brigiotta’s Farmland Produce and Garden Center of Jamestown, NY filed the class action against the United Potato Growers of America (UPGA), United Potato Growers of Idaho (UPGI) and a long list of member and nonmember growers in 2010. The lawsuit, and another filed by Associated Wholesale Grocers in 2013, claims the defendants conspired to inflate the price of potatoes “in classic cartel behavior,” that the cartel used physical and nonphysical intimidation to get independent growers to join, that it used high-tech methods of surveillance and physical “flyovers” to monitor members, and that the successful campaign led to an 80 percent control of the market.
Idaho grower Albert Wada, of Wada Farms Group, allegedly spearheaded the campaign, founding the United Fresh Potato Growers of Idaho in 2004, later renaming it the United Potato Growers of Idaho. The organization’s purpose, as stated in its articles of incorporation, is to “stabilize potato prices and supplies in the state of Idaho and to work with similar cooperatives in other states having similar purposes,” according to the third amended complaint, a 107-page monster filed on Jan. 24, 2014.
United Potato Growers of America was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City. Members pay dues from $10,000 to $500,000 based on acreage, according to the complaint. The “cooperatives” were formed in response to declining prices. Growers reduced the supply of potatoes, in part, by changing their contracts with customers, basing orders on a specific number of acres of potatoes to be grown instead of a specific quantity of potatoes.