________________________________________________________________________________ Atlantic
Food Distributors
Stan and Tiffany Manolakis solutions to our customers, but we’ re also aligned on how we deliver service. Through this partnership, we have diverse buying programs and a continuous ability to offer something new to our customers.”
Investing in infrastructure
Elaborating on Atlantic’ s latest developments, Craig continues:“ With more than 12,000 items across all foodservice categories, Stan has grown the business significantly,” he shares.“ We outgrew our site around five years ago, and we’ ve been exploring new premises ever since, but we were delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, our dreams are coming true, and we’ ve very recently moved to a state-of-the-art, 158,000-square-foot distribution center.
“ Our previous site was around 60,000 square feet, so we’ re more than doubling our footprint. The new freezer is almost bigger than the entirety of our old distribution center!
We also have an impressive test kitchen on site, and we’ ve hired a corporate chef to do business reviews and demonstrate products to our customers. We’ re already seeing increased sales based on the excitement around the new facility, as it is testament to our long-term investment plan for sustainable growth.”
Rather than targeting new geographies, Atlantic’ s new location will allow the company to grow within existing markets.“ Within our region, there’ s a population of around four million people and over 40,000 restaurants, but we currently serve around 1500 restaurants, so there’ s plenty of scope to win more market share and penetrate our existing geographies,” Craig explains.“ In the field of broadline distribution, there are two main operating expenses: labor, and materials and handling costs. The latter is around half of our costs, so the further we travel in miles, the less efficient we become, meaning it’ s more
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