BusinessReport.com

Jerome Hopkins started Bengal Chef in 1966, one of many locally owned independent food distributors that once thrived in Baton Rouge. He and his partners sold the business in the early 1990s, partly because they were tired of competing against companies with many times their buying power.

He says they were able to hang with the big boys for a while with personal service and sheer hustle, making twice-daily deliveries for local customers who might have had to wait a few days to get the same shipment from out of town. Eventually, the economies of scale enjoyed by larger companies started to catch up with Bengal Chef.

“I got out at the right time,” Hopkins says. “I made good money, so I can’t complain. It was a lot of fun while it lasted.”

Bengal Chef is just one of at least nine independent food distributors no longer in business, a list that includes Imperial Foods, DiVincenti Brothers, Crifasi Brothers, Food Systems, Capital Supply, Pelican Provision, Sullivan Wholesale and Fruit Exchange.

Now, there’s only a handful. Over the past 20 years, national companies like Sysco and Performance Food Group entered the market with the capacity to deliver almost anything a grocery store or restaurant needs at a lower price, nudging the little guys aside. Their stories mirror those of so many small and mid-sized businesses that were swallowed alive by the Wal-Marts of the world.

“If you’re not big, you’re going to have a hard time competing. (The big companies) can offer so much,” Peter Crifasi Jr. says. His grandfather started the family business with a downtown fruit stand in the 1920s. Crifasi Brothers grew to fill a Scenic Highway warehouse, dealing institutional foods to schools, independent restaurants and hotels and employing nearly 50 people at its height. The company was sold in 1988 to Caro Foods, which is now part of Performance Food Group.

Back then, if you called Crifasi desperately needing something that day, you could get it. He might barter with another local business, even a competitor, if he didn’t have what the customer needed on hand. That level of service is unheard of now, he says. A modern customer might go online to place their order and never see a sales rep.

“The only way we can survive is to have a niche, to do something they can’t do,” says Kyle Beck, owner of Ready Portion Meat Company on Choctaw Drive.

Ready Portion, established in 1960, deals in frozen meat, vegetables and other items which could easily be acquired from out-of-town companies, but their specialty is premium fresh meat for hotels and restaurants. Beck says a customer needing an order of aged steaks can call in at 8 a.m. and have it by lunchtime.

“I hate to see the local guys go out of business or be bought out,” Beck says. “It’s hard to compete against Sysco and U.S. Foods. They can sell cheaper than we can because of their buying power. I’m not saying they always do. But if they wanted to put us out of business they probably could.”

Joe Christiana started in the food business in 1957 when Christiana Brothers opened in New Orleans before coming to Baton Rouge in 1962 under his own name. Joe Christiana Food Distributor, which once just sold chicken, has expanded over the years to employ 25 people as a full-service food wholesaler, including plates and carryout boxes.

Joe Christiana Jr. says the Sorrel Avenue business is the only one in a 100-mile radius that has fresh chicken cut to order. “The big guys come in here and just blitzkrieg the area with salesmen and beat you by sheer numbers. It used to be the harder you worked, the more money you made.”

Now, they work as hard as ever for less profit, as the price of utilities, insurance and fuel continue to rise. He says his company competes by offering top quality instead of rock-bottom prices, but understands why some buyers prefer to go with the cheapest, since everyone else’s expenses are going up too.

One might think that personal, face-to-face service would make a difference to local customers, and it does. But as the city grows and fewer businesspeople actually know each other, it doesn’t mean as much as it used to, Christiana says. He says he wishes more people would consider buying locally, if only to support their neighbors and the local economy.