Laurel Grocery, IGA assist independent retailers

Laurel Grocery Co., The Shelby Report’s Wholesaler of the Year for its Midwest and Southeast regions, and the Independent Grocers Allliance have a decades-long history of partnership. The Kentucky-based wholesaler has been one of IGA’s nine licensed distributors since 1999.

“What I love about Laurel is they are truly a family business that supports family businesses, from the way they’re organized to the leadership team,” said IGA CEO John Ross. “Family businesses often have associates who have been in the company for 20 and 30 years, and that’s what you see at Laurel.

“You go there and there’s some of the same people working for the company from when [Chairman and CEO] Winston [Griffin] was a boy. That’s really a testament to the company culture, that you can attract and retain people who become a part of your virtual family in a way that allows you to keep your values alive and well. And their values are very strong.”

Ross said everything Laurel does is to ensure its retailers are successful. He noted that Laurel’s IGA customers say its employees care and are ready to solve a problem without evaluating “whether there’s an ROI on it. They’re just going to try to solve the problem as best they can.”

Ross said wholesalers across the world have been forced – like every modern company – to figure out a way to take cost out and be more efficient, adding that it’s easy to rationalize retailer support in those decisions. He said Laurel has never “scrimped” on customer service.

“When you prioritize that, usually a very successful business follows,” Ross said. He pointed out the signs posted around Laurel that say “Think Retail.”

“Everywhere you go in the company it says ‘Think Retail.’ They prioritize retail thinking over wholesaler thinking and, to me, that’s genius.”

Area director: Working with Laurel ‘easy job’

Doug Stone has been an area director for IGA 18 months and works with Laurel as one of IGA’s licensed distribution centers. In his role, Stone said he interacts with the wholesaler to “assist them in making sure that they’re taking full advantage of the IGA programs.” Laurel has a “great bunch of people to work with, so it’s an easy job.”

Stone said Laurel is unique in that is has been owned by the same two families for 100 years – the company’s anniversary is this year – with each family having 50 percent interest in it.

“Laurel has been extremely easy to deal with because they do have that family ownership and they’re involved in the community, they’re involved with their retailers,” he said. “One of the things that makes Laurel so great is that family relationship, it isn’t just business reporting to a quarterly P&L program for Wall Street.”

He added that, as a wholesaler, Laurel “does a tremendous job” of being able to relate to its retailers, noting the company has a few corporately owned stores.

“That gives them the ability to understand what’s happening at retail, and then Please see page 28