As one of the faster growing wholesale distributors in the Southeastern United States, the family owned Nickey Gregory Co. has not only achieved success due to the way it conducts business with fresh produce, but realizes the importance of transportation. In fact, President Nickey Gregory will be the first to tell you that since the beginning, he has owned a truck.
Opening on New Year’s Day of 2000, Gregory now has 14 big rigs being run by sister company, Gregory Family Express, which operates within a 750-mile distribution radius of their headquarters, located on the Atlanta State Farmers Market. The company also has 16 straight jobs running between Atlanta and its facility that opened three and one-half years ago in Miami.
“I’ve been in the wholesale distribution business and in the trucking business since day one. The one needs the other,” states Gregory, whose wife Cheryl Gregory is company vice president. There also are several other family members holding key positions in the company.
The full line wholesale distributor handles over 300 fresh produce items, sourcing product from all over the United States, as well as Canada, Spain, Mexico and Holland. The product is distributed to customers in Georgia, as well as Florida, the Carolinas, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia.
In recent years Gregory build a new 50,000-square-foot warehouse and offices on the Atlanta State Farmers Market. More recently, a repacking operation has been opened near the market.
While trucks are vital to the various Gregory operations, less than one percent of Gregory’s produce is delivered to Atlanta by rail. Still, Gregory wouldn’t hesitate using rail if it could provide the service. He notes one can save a dollar to $1.20 per package using railroads, but this does no good when it takes a month to receive your order.
“We used to do (buy) apples from Washington State. But we’ve lost orders by railroad for up to a month. It took nine months to get the claims settled with the railroads,” Gregory says. What little rail service he uses is mostly potatoes and onions out of Idaho and Oregon.
He states there was better rail service in the 1920s from Bakersfiled, CA to Atlanta when trains would stop to have railcars loaded with lettuce iced down.
“Texas used to be a rail market,” Gregory recalls. “We would receive cantaloupe from there.”
The wholesaler receives less than one percent of its volume by rail. Trucks continue to provide the service and flexiblity so important when handling fresh fruits and vegetables.
From day one at Nickey Gregory to this day and the foreeable future, refrigerated trucking will be a key to the company’s success.