(BRK.A), (BRK.B)
Berkshire Hathaway’s McLane Company, Inc., a leading supply chain services company providing grocery and foodservice solutions, has been chosen as the main distributor for fred’s Pharmacy. With more than 650 locations across the Southeastern part of the United States, this new service agreement allows McLane’s nationwide reach and expertise to consolidate the work of fred’s 60-plus previous distributors.
“McLane is well-known in the industry for offering supply chain efficiencies and additional benefits of scale of a single source of supply for key consumable categories,” said Chief Executive Officer, fred’s Inc., Michael Bloom. “Partnering with McLane as an alternate distribution source allows us to improve our efficiencies and overall direct-to-store process including our ability to improve service, assortment, and freshness; and ultimately grow sales and profit.”
fred’s recently participated in McLane’s value-add Center for Category Innovation (formerly Lab Store) process, where the retailer was able to benefit from McLane’s proprietary sales database and category managers to identify and capitalize on key merchandising trends and market-specific product mix and planograms.
“fred’s has uniquely positioned itself to be a successful pharmacy retailer with a broad value based assortment in the Southeast,” said Tony Frankenberger, president at McLane Company, Inc. “It’s a privilege to be chosen as a supply chain provider for fred’s, and further help the company reach its goals.”
About McLane
McLane Company, Inc. is one of the largest supply chain services leaders in the U.S. providing grocery and foodservice supply chain solutions for convenience stores, mass merchants, drug stores and chain restaurants throughout the United States. McLane, through McLane Grocery, McLane Foodservice and wholly owned subsidiary, Meadowbrook Meat Company, Inc., (MBM), operates 80 distribution centers across the U.S. and one of the nation’s largest private fleets. The company buys, sells and delivers more than 50,000 different consumer products to nearly 90,000 locations across the U.S. In addition, McLane provides alcoholic beverage distribution through its wholly owned subsidiary, Empire Distributors, Inc.
In May 2003, Berkshire Hathaway acquired McLane Company from Wal-Mart, and the company currently has more than 20,000 employees.
© 2016 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.