Food Broker Consolidation - Good News?

Technomic Offers Viewpoint on "Mega-Merger"

Technomic's Bob Goldin has released a Viewpoint editorial with his opinion of the recently announced Advantage Waypoint organization and how this may affect the foodservice industry. Like many in the foodservice industry, we agree with Bob's assessment that this heralds a fundamental "tipping point" in the industry.

Will sales execution ultimately decide the success or failure of any large or small sale agency? How will social media, particularly social web intelligence play a role? Michael Atkinson, CEO and founder of FohBoh. will weigh in on this next week.

Click on the link below to read Bob's editorial.

Bob Goldin's Viewpoint on Advantage Waypoint, LLC

Tags: Advantage Waypoint, foodservice broker, foodservice supply chain, technomic

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Non-Operator Comment by Michael Eberhardt on December 15, 2011 at 8:13pm: This is a huge for SE Michigan. Currently we have MVP and Mascari in our state. Both with a large line of products, what will their future hold and what kind of support will I expect to receive? I have been in the DSR role for 8 years and have seen brokers consolidate or smaller ones fold under. Currently I deal with about 8 different brokers, can't wait to see how this plays out.

I guess the real question will be with these "power brokers" are; will manufactures decide that the broker community will be the best way to represent their product?

I think the broker community does a great job of showing new products to a sales force and ultimately to the right volume moving accounts, which can help create demand for an item. But I feel they lack the ability to sell a new lines to a distributor on bringing a new manufacture on board or for that matter going after a private label product. That is where having Manufacture Sales Rep comes into play. I don’t think manufactures will go away from their traditional sales role but the manufactures who stayed away from the broker community because they saw no value will have to think long and hard about these new “power brokers”

Comment by Steven Groves on December 15, 2011 at 2:39pm: Congratulations to the new Advantage Waypoint!

Non-Operator Comment by Joe Welsh on December 15, 2011 at 2:32pm: My experience from the retail side of the Food Industry followed a similar path. Consolidation for cost efficiencies is the main driver. Eventually, the "Power Brokers" will have to provide more value to the operators and manufacturers to justify their role in the equation.

Non-Operator Comment by FohBoh on December 15, 2011 at 2:14pm: Advantage Waypoint LLC is comprised of the eight companies that currently form a working alliance under the name of Waypoint including Apex Foodservice Group, Benchmark Sales, Dougherty Brokerage Company, Food Sales West, FSI Southwest, Innovative Concept Group, Inter-Mark Sales, and Midwest Venture Partners. A ninth company independent of the current Waypoint alliance, C Mascari & Associates, will also join Advantage Waypoint LLC.

Advantage Waypoint LLC is headquartered in Tampa, Fla. and led by Bud Taylor, chief executive officer, former president of Innovative Concept Group.

So, what do operators, manufacturers, brokers and distributors think of this?