A California-based food service agent, BBC
represents 40 manufacturers, two test kitchens & has a drive to challenge itself for further success
Written by Sarah Wolfe Produced by Janelle LiportoBay Brokerage is an institutional agent representing 40 of the finest companies to the food service industry in California and Nevada, handling sales and marketing.
Given what it went through its first year, it’s clear the company has had the focus and determination for success from the start. Co-founder Richard Hoadley had worked for Proctor & Gamble handling edible fats and oils for retail and institutional sales, and helped establish Clorox’s food service division. With enough knowledge to create his own business – and tired of extensive traveling – he and his wife, Karen, founded Bay Brokerage Company in 1977 in San Carlos, CA.
Its first client was Treasure Island Seafood out of Florida. The small business then began representing Epicurean Roast Beef but just six months later the client went out of business, causing a major hit for Bay Brokerage. Fortunately JNL Poultry of New Jersey knew of BBC’s work with Epicurean and signed on with the fledgling business, helping it turn a corner.
“It allowed us to hire a secretary and our first sales person,” Richard Hoadley says. “Two months later, however, the sales person discovered he had lung cancer. We supported him for a year, but we couldn’t hire anyone else to help sell.”
Hoadley calls those first 12 months “a dark time for the company.” Though returning to employment with a major manufacturer would’ve been a safer option, he wasn’t ready to give up. Many of his friends in the distribution community offered help, sometimes covering travel expenses, to enable the small business to move forward.
“We got very lucky and with their help, and some additional clients, we began to grow,” he says. “Within a year of that really bad time it was obvious we were going to be okay.”
Today, BBC is “a well-established, well-funded, zero-debt” agent with more than 50 employees. Its growth has been averaging 10-12 percent the past 30 years and it’s infused its staff with vibrant, young talent to carry BBC for another 30 years – including an under-40 CFO and sales manager. Despite the current economy it continues to hire.
The clientele
BBC’s clients are mainly in the restaurant, hospital, school and military sectors, and it works with many dedicated distributors in both California and Nevada.
“The food business has the heartbeat of a humming bird – it’s very fast paced and there are often multiple sales per week of perishables to manage,” Hoadley says.
BBC is also the eyes and ears for its manufacturers, performing sales and marketing in its target regions. Hoadley says BBC’s approach to customers is what sets it apart from others. The employee-owned business is organized with different teams dedicated to distributors, manufacturers, etc., with a sole focus on determining what works best for each client.
“I think we’ve done a great job in finding out who the customer is and putting in specific practices in addressing them,” Hoadley says. “We also treat each other at the company like customers, listening to what the needs are and showing each other the same respect.”
In the test kitchens
Roughly 26 of BBC’s employees work from home offices with company equipment, covering the region they live in. The remaining 30 staff members work from the company’s two buildings across the street from each other in the downtown San Carlos area. One facility operates as the headquarters and the other is for warehousing and the company’s deli division. BBC recently remodeled the deli office area with new glass walls and open spaces to create a more interactive working environment.
BBC’s two offices are geographically in the middle between the San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland airports, allowing clients easy access in and out of the area. Eight years ago BBC installed two test kitchens in its training facility. One kitchen, in a room with 50-person capacity, is for presentations and food sampling. A second kitchen behind an adjacent wall is for all the preparation work, eliminating the need for clean up – especially helpful when there’s limited time between client meetings.
“We’re representing 40 manufacturers to potential clients, showing them how these products look, taste, feel and how they’re used in a menuable way,” says Hoadley. “We have chefs who are experts in different sectors like colleges and hospitals with commodities know-how, and we also have dieticians. It’s through their eyes we see the products our manufacturers have and how to market them.”
Changing tastes
Since BBC began, Hoadley has witnessed significant trends in the industry, including better food safety and nutrition awareness, consolidation of distributors, and – especially on the West Coast – more demand for organic and locally-produced products, which cuts down on costly long-distance transport and the risk of spoilage.
“We also find that most of the new restaurants here in California are ethnic in origin – Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean or Asian. Culturally our tastes are changing from wanting much more than ‘meat and potatoes.’ That’s a challenge for all of us in the food service industry – making sure we’re on point with what we’re coming to market with,” he says.
Social networking & growth
BBC uses specially-designed software to maintain real-time data and has just upgraded to a digital fiber optic network, increasing speed 10-fold. This investment will support the company’s move into social networking to reach more clients.
“E-Marketing has been a huge opportunity to support our activity. We’re creating photographed menuable ideas and they’re reaching many more people so much faster. Blogging can also be used to train in kitchens – you send out the instructions once and 100 chefs can be trained in an hour,” Hoadley says.
BBC’s additional goals involve expanding its business into Southern California as well as further across its current territory, and becoming even more aware of industry change so it can quickly adapt to client needs.
“We basically need to keep doing exactly what we’re doing, only better,” Hoadley says. “In all areas we need to continually challenge ourselves.”
View Digital Corporate Profile of Bay Brokerage in Food and Drink Digital June 2009