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Tag: retail

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: WILLIAM W. ‘BILL’ LOVETTE

Lovette was Sauer Brands’ executive chairman and interim CEO in 2019, when Charlotte, North Carolina-based Falfurrias Capital Group purchased Richmond-based family-owned spice company C.F. Sauer. He then made way for Martin Kelly, who became president and CEO of the renamed Sauer Brands later
that year.

However, as of January, Lovette is back as CEO at Sauer, which produces and distributes Duke’s Mayonnaise, Sauer-branded spices and other condiments to grocery stores. In 2020, Sauer acquired Chicago Custom Foods, and in 2021, the company purchased Texas-based Mateo’s Gourmet Salsa. In 2020, Duke’s became the title sponsor of the Duke’s Mayo Classic football game in Charlotte, an annual match in September between two universities — this year North Carolina and South Carolina.

A seasoned food industry veteran, Lovette became president and CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride in 2011 and grew the company from $6.9 billion to $10.9 billion in annual net revenue. He also held executive roles at Case Foods and Tyson Foods before joining Falfurrias in 2018 as an adviser. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: WATT R. FOSTER JR.

In 1989, Watt Foster Jr. bought Foster Fuels from his father, the late Watt R. “Bobby” Foster Sr. The younger Foster marks the third generation to run the family business, which was founded in 1921.

In June, Foster was named one of 11 winners of Ernst & Young’s 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year Mid-Atlantic Award.

Foster Fuels holds the prime contract for emergency fuel with the federal government, and through the company’s Mission Critical division it has responded to relief efforts including Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake and, more recently, the Texas ice storms and Hurricane Ian. This year, Foster Fuels became the first fuel provider on the East Coast to offer net-zero hydrotreated vegetable and waste oil (HVO) renewable diesel fuel, which is derived from used cooking oil.

The business’s success allows Foster to focus on the Watt Foster Family Foundation, which donated more than $460,000 in 2021 to support disadvantaged children, scholarship funds and local charities. Foster also has placed more than 2,000 acres of land under conservation easements.

WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY: Being at the lake with my family

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: VINCE SHEEHY IV

Sheehy carries on his father’s legacy as an auto dealer, manning the second largest dealership group in Virginia and No. 31 in the nation. His father, Vincent Sheehy III, founded Sheehy Ford in Maryland in 1965 as a suburban business near the newly built Capital Beltway.

After graduating from Dickinson College, receiving an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, and working in marketing and sales for Prudential and General Mills, the younger Sheehy joined the family business in the late 1980s. He became president in 1998 and now oversees 30 dealerships. Sheehy Auto Stores is the largest retailer of Fords and Nissans in the mid-Atlantic region. In March, Sheehy sold Patriot Harley-Davidson in Fairfax to Paul Veracka, owner of the largest Harley dealership group on the East Coast, for an undisclosed amount.

Sheehy is a trustee for Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and in 2021 he and his brother, Paul, gave $100,000 to the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project after hearing an exonerated client speak about his ordeal.

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: REID A. BROWN

What began in 1919 as a bottling operation for cherry cola is now a major beverage-distribution business delivering more than 5 million cases of domestic and craft beers, ciders, seltzers and nonalcoholic beverages annually.

Reid Brown is among the fourth generation to run Brown Distributing, joining the family business in 2006. His brother, Jason Brown, who came on board in 1999, serves as vice president.

The company has more than 200 employees and serves more than 3,000 retailers throughout Virginia.

Richmond-area nonprofits have benefited from Brown Distributing over the years through direct contributions and event sponsorships. In late 2021, two foundations affiliated with the business donated $1 million to the University of Richmond’s Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative, which offers entrepreneurial education to non-business majors.

Brown has been an active player on the beer and brewery scene, helping create the Richmond Beer Elite group, providing an online forum for the local beer community, including competitive distributors and breweries. The company acquired craft beer distribution companies in Virginia and Florida in 2009.

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: TING XU

A Shanghai native, Xu graduated from Old Dominion University and settled in Richmond in 1989. She was working as a computer programmer for the state health department in 1993 when she started a small decorative flag venture in her garage, investing $20,000. Established in part to provide work for her parents, who had been engineers in China before immigrating to Virginia, Evergreen Enterprises was the start of a home goods empire led by Xu and her husband, Frank Qiu.

The company manufactures and sells home and garden décor and gifts for worldwide distribution, making annual revenues averaging $250 million. Building on her success, in 2010, Xu and Qiu purchased PH International, parent company of several home furnishing brands, including Plow & Hearth. In 2014, Evergreen acquired earth-friendly décor retailer VivaTerra.

Xu serves on the boards of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Foundation and the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business Foundation. An angel investor, she mentors women in business and financial literacy. Xu splits her time between Virginia and Hawaii, where she was one of the keynote speakers at Hawaii Business Magazine’s Women Entrepreneurs Conference in May.

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: STEVEN C. ‘STEVE’ SMITH

Smith is carrying on his family’s legacy at the helm of K-VA-T, the Southwest Virginia operator of Food City supermarkets. His father, Jack C. Smith, grew the K-VA-T empire from a single Piggly Wiggly store opened in Grundy in 1955. Steve Smith joined the family business after graduating from James Madison University in 1979, becoming CEO in 2001.

Today, Smith oversees a grocery corporation with $3.8 billion in annual revenue, 18,100 employees and 138 retail supermarkets across Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and Alabama.

In August 2022, K-VA-T acquired six Fresh n’ Low stores and Cooke’s Food Store & Pharmacy in the Cleveland, Tennessee, area, near Chattanooga, and this year, the company announced plans to build more Food City locations in Alabama and Tennessee. In June, Food City donated $4 million to Emory & Henry College for the naming rights of its sports complex.

Smith serves on the Governor’s Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates.

WHAT MAKES ME HAPPIEST: Being able to help our company continue to grow and succeed, and watching our teammates advance in their careers. On a personal note, my wife, Debbie, and I are very excited to become grandparents this year!

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: GEORGE L. HOLM

Performance Food Group’s leader since 2008, Holm has worked for more than 40 years in the food service distribution industry. The Goochland-based corporation was ranked No. 91 on the 2023 Fortune 500 list, with $47.19 billion in revenue reported in fiscal year 2022, up from $30.39 billion in 2021.

After holding leadership roles with Sysco, US Foods and Alliant Foodservice, Holm was president and CEO of Vistar, a multichannel food, snack and beverage distributor. In 2008, the Blackstone Group and Wellspring Capital Management purchased PFG and merged it with a subsidiary of Vistar, creating a $10 billion corporation still carrying the PFG name. Holm became the new company’s president and CEO as part of the $1.4 billion deal.

PFG, which employs 35,000 people, went public in 2015, and Holm became its board chairman in 2019. PFG delivers food products to more than 300,000 locations in the United States and Canada, including restaurants, businesses, schools, theaters and retailers. In July, PFG purchased OLM Food Solutions, an Idaho-based pizza producer, for an undisclosed amount.

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: ROBERT S. ‘BOBBY’ UKROP

Ukrop’s name is synonymous with his family’s former Virginia grocery chain that opened in 1937 and was purchased in 2009 by Dutch retail conglomerate Ahold. In recent years, Ukrop rebooted one of the Ukrop’s stores’ most beloved features: its line of prepared foods. Not long after the sale of the grocery chain, he and his two sons-in-law founded Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods, which manufactures baked goods and ready-to-eat meals. In 2020, the company opened Ukrop’s Market Hall in western Henrico County.

Ukrop is heavily involved in supporting regional athletics. In the early 1980s, he helped build The Diamond, Richmond’s baseball stadium. These days, he is focused on swim access and safety, sitting on the board for SwimRVA. “My passion is to work with others, to not only drown-proof RVA but drown-proof the entire commonwealth of Virginia through Learn to Swim programs in schools in all jurisdictions,” he says.

HOW I CHOSE MY CAREER: I loved the idea of helping our family’s business grow and prosper and have the opportunity to help our community as well.

HOW I UNWIND FROM WORK: Swim laps

FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM: Richmond Kickers

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: KEVIN MURPHY

It’s been an eventful year for the North American subsidiary of U.K. plumbing and heating products distributor Ferguson, which saw its revenues jump from $22.8 billion in 2021 to $28.6 billion in 2022.

In September 2022, the company, which does almost all its business in North America, announced a collaboration with automaker Ford in which an F-550 prototype hydrogen fuel cell work truck would join Ferguson’s fleet for six months, in part to collect data on the environmentally friendlier transportation option.

In December 2022, Ferguson announced the acquisition of Airefco, an Oregon-based distributor of HVAC equipment, parts and supplies, with 191 employees across 11 locations.

Murphy got his start in the plumbing industry working summers at his father’s business, Midwest Pipe and Supply, which was purchased by Ferguson in 1999. Over the years, Murphy has held multiple roles at Ferguson, including group chief executive, and he also serves as chairman of its executive committee.

PERSONAL MOTTO: Care more about the development of others than yourself and always have an insatiable intellectual curiosity.

Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: ROBERT A. ‘BOB’ ARCHER

It’s fitting that Archer lists running as a hobby, noting that he’s completed 13 marathons.

Archer’s entire life seems like a marathon toward leading his family business, beginning with earning a business degree from Virginia Tech in 1969, followed immediately by military service with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty) and a tour in Vietnam.

Upon his discharge in 1972, Archer was named general manager and vice president of Blue Ridge Beverage, the wholesale beer, wine and non-alcoholic distributorship his family has owned and operated since 1959; he became chairman and CEO in 2001. The business employs 475.

Along the way, Archer retired from the Army Reserve in 1999 after 30 years of service. He was inducted into the Army ROTC Hall of Fame in 2021 and received the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Distinguished Alumni award in 2020.

Archer serves on Radford University’s board of visitors. He and his wife, Sandra, have three children. In addition to running, his other hobbies include international travel, photography and
history reading.