1922 2022

“Bruce Chesnut asked me one day in the warehouse if I was going to college and asked what I was majoring in. He said to let him know when I graduated, and he would have a place for me in the accounting department. When I graduated, I told Bruce and he said perfect timing – we have an opening.”

After graduation, he moved to the administration building as a staff accountant. He studied and acquired his CPA under Philip Smith, who later decided to go into practice for himself.

“I went to Bruce and told him that despite being young, I would give him my all. I took over as controller in 1999. When Bruce stepped down as CFO, I was promoted to CFO in 2006,” George said.

He noted that Laurel made it possible for him to become a CPA, a Chartered Global Management Accountant, a Certified Valuation Analyst and to earn his MBA. He has seen firsthand that Laurel has continued to get stronger through the years.

“Laurel is everything to my family,” he said. “When I was growing up, in my house if it did not come through the Laurel warehouse, it did not go on our table. That’s just the way it was. I was brought up to be loyal to your employer. Everything I have is because of Laurel.”

Manager: ‘They get right on it’

Allen Argo is the store manager of Ken’s Fresh Foods in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. He has worked for the Techau family, which owns the store, for 30 years and worked for the previous owner for nine years. He said Laurel Grocery reminds him “a lot of the way we used to do business 25 to 30 years ago.”

According to Argo, Laurel employees are “really great people that really care about us, the customers. I think that’s probably what makes them as good as they are, is their people.”

Argo has a good relationship with the Laurel team members, from customer service to management. “All their management people, I actually have their personal cell phone, if I have a problem.” While he doesn’t make those calls often, when he has, “things get taken care of.”

Argo described Laurel President David Pearson as “a great guy.” He said when Ken’s Fresh Foods made the transition to Laurel as its wholesaler, Pearson visited the store and told him to call if he needed anything. “For the president of a company to do that with a store manager, I feel that’s pretty impressive.”

The store’s social media presence also has gotten an assist from Laurel. Argo said he had difficulty updating the store’s Facebook page frequently. Now, Laurel has a person taking care of it for the store.

“They really made a big push on that,” he said. “That’s really helped out a lot and taken a little bit of that load off of me.”

From employee to loyal customer

Joe Jester, a former Laurel Grocery Co. employee, is now a customer and has been since he bought his first store in 2008. He had worked for the wholesaler as a retail counselor for four years.

Jester, who owns four IGA Fresh Markets in southeastern Indiana, said not only does Laurel understand retail “a lot better than other wholesalers,” but the company “makes you successful at retailing so that they’re successful also.”

To Jester, other wholesalers put more emphasis on being successful at wholesale, first, and don’t assure that the retailer is successful. “I think that’s their secret, they do everything they can to make the retailer successful,” Jester said of Laurel Grocery.

He added that he likes that the company is owned by individuals and it’s not as cumbersome as a publicly traded corporation.

“If you ever need something important, it doesn’t take long to get an answer,” Jester said. “If a customer calls for upper management with Laurel Grocery, and they’re in a meeting, someone else carries on the meeting and that upper management person gets on the phone with the retailer and takes care of his concerns.”

Jester said Laurel goes above and beyond “mostly every day.” One thing he really appreciates is that the company puts a lot of effort into “proper retail pricing.”

Laurel employees also have helped him when he has had management turnover in a store and “the pricing gets out of whack.”