Reddy Raw and Affiliated Companies - the northeast's premier frozen foods distributor

Reddy Raw and Affiliated Companies - Your Just in Time Distributor since 1948

Reddy Raw at 50: Supplying The Northeast with "Just-In-Time" Perishable and Frozen Products.
As reprinted in Modern Food Service Magazine.

When Reddy Raw was founded by Henry S. "Sam" Baum in 1948, America was just rebounding from the trials of World War II. It was a time of unprecedented optimism, as millions of American men returned home to start families and establish careers.

One of those young people was Sam, who served as a quartermaster in the Army. During his tour of duty, Sam had learned a lot about food, and how important the logistics of procuring, transporting, and preparing food were to the troops and the war effort. At that time, the prepared and frozen foods industry was in its infancy. Most of what Sam moved through the Army's distribution channels was fresh, so it had to move quick.

Sensitive to this, he returned to civilian life in New York City, where he spent some years performing a number of odd jobs and socializing with friends. Then, one day in 1948, while playing cards with acquaintances in Brooklyn, the conversation turned to the possibilities presented by the economic and population boom of the late 1940's.

Sam harkened back to his days as quartermaster and shared the opinion that the road to success was paved with food, specifically, the road that manufacturers used to get their products to the dinner table and the restaurant. His friends didn't take him very seriously, but an idea had been planted in Sam's head.

Using contacts he made during the war, and familiar with the local New York business landscape, Sam began seriously consider setting up a food distribution company.

But first, he had to overcome many obstacles, namely, what products to distribute, and how to get the items to customers. The decision to specialize in food was an easy one, since food was a necessity of everyday life, and demand for products was increasing as the population of the region grew.

The war had brought forth great technological advances that were now being applied in the civilian sector, including the field of food processing. Sam knew that longer-lasting products helped feed the troops in the field, and realized the potential for growth in shipping frozen products to the private sector.

About this time, Sam and his business partners heard about the J.R. Simplot Company, the successful frozen potato processor in Idaho. A business was established, and Reddy Raw was born as a distributor of J.R. Simplot products. The year was 1948.

Reddy Raw's first offices, warehouse and truck depot were on Washington Street in downtown Manhattan. Its first and only product was fresh blanched potatoes, prepared by employees and repackaged for next-day delivery to Reddy Raw's customers.

At the time, these ready-to-fry potatoes were a big advance in convenience, as they required no other preparation. Reddy Raw's food service customers found that they saved time and labor using this value-added product. No longer were kitchen crews required to spend hours cleaning and peeling potatoes (Certainly, Sam had remembered the drudgery of K.P. in the Army). Demand was such that it wasn't long before the company added related products to its inventory, including whole peeled potatoes, frozen french fries, and vegetables. Restaurants, institutions, and hotels wanted more, and Sam Baum was ready to supply them.

Growth did not come easily at first. Many operators had become used to incorporating the "old-fashioned" way into their daily routines, and had made allowances for those chores in the way they ran their kitchen. But once they became aware of the revolutionary products available from a new company called Reddy Raw, simple demand created a market for these value-added convenience items.

Word spreads soon enough that kitchen workers no longer had to spend extraordinary amount of time preparing this staple of the restaurant meal, Managers and owners, anxious to conserve money and labor, were excited by these new products and sought them out for use on their menus.

With a growing customer base, Reddy Raw was ready for larger, more modern quarters. The logical location for the move was Brooklyn and the borough's small terminal market. Setting up shop around the corner from the market at 8702 Ditmas Avenue, meant the raw products could arrive directly on rail and be transferred immediately to the warehouse. Ditmas Avenue allowed Reddy Raw, as a company, to likewise save on labor and transportation costs, mirroring the savings it was passing onto food service operators in the form of finished product.

For those with an eye for industry trends, Sam Baum was one of the few men working in food service processing at the time who had the foresight to prepare for the future. With the economy booming, the public was demanding expedience and accessibility to products that freed up their time.

The simple staple products - potatoes and vegetables - delivered by Reddy Raw allowed them to satisfy both requirements. Chefs could pass over mundane tasks of preparing the products, and proceed directly to cooking them with the least bit of effort. The minimally processed items also accommodated individual culinary tastes, as professionals could use Reddy Raw inventory to continue preparing their own signature dishes.

The relationship between Simplot and Reddy Raw grew throughout the 1950s and '60s. A Simplot plant was built in Maine, and allowed operators to enjoy the benefits of frozen goods, via Reddy Raw deliveries. The company's distribution network was also expanding. Eventually, it would include all of the Northeast, including New England; and the Middle Atlantic states, as far south as Washington, DC.

After years of effort selling the benefits of frozen and processed commodities, Sam Baum could declare success. Food services and hospitality establishments had come to rely on the products as much as they had relied on fresh deliveries in earlier decades. The thought of going back to the primitive methods of yesterday were out of the question. Sam's vision had come true.

Still, the job was tough. Advances in refrigeration allowed the products sold by Reddy Raw to keep longer, but the 30-pound bags of potatoes and vegetables continued to have a limited shelf life, The company became an expert on the art of turnover and sell-through. The very nature of the products required timely delivery. Reddy Raw developed a strong delivery network that was exercised and altered every day to meet the needs of customers.

A large part of the reason for this was the fact that many food service establishments had yet to be retrofitted with adequate cold space. As a result, daily deliveries of Reddy Raw inventory for larger volume customers was very common. These repeated visits went a long way towards establishing the company's reputation for product quality and consistency; and reliability. The hallmarks of this reputation remain very much in existence today.

In the late 1960's, Sam again called on his foresight into the industry and decided to take the company independent. He reorganized Reddy Raw to serve independent and broadline distributors.

With the shift in the customer base, Reddy Raw changed its operating procedures to meet the needs of its high-volume clients. The frequency of deliveries may have fallen, but the amount of delivered dramatically increased. Reddy Raw's inventory was repackaged into larger parcels and the company invested in a fleet of larger trucks.

Other aspects of the business did not change, however. A customer was a customer, no matter how large or small, and Reddy Raw continued to make as many deliveries as needed, since the products were still perishable, the broadliners had to carefully monitor sell-through to keep the items in top quality. Often the amount of product moving through their doors required consistent, reliable replenishment from Reddy Raw.

Once again, Reddy Raw's distinction of being a company that could deliver as necessary, when needed, helped to propel it so the top of many a distributor's contact list when sourcing fresh, processed, and frozen products.

The company's current president, Henry Senderowicz joined the enterprise in 1972, and assisted Sam as he refocused the goals of the company, Capitalizing on the expanding customer base and specific inventory. Reddy Raw grew at such a rate that it made successive moves to larger facilities, and made several acquisitions by the end of the 1980s.

Idaho Freez-Pac, acquired in 1989, was a local competitor with headquarters in Rochelle Park, NJ. Like Reddy Raw, its inventory was frozen items, and the purchase added to Reddy Raw's ability to expand its customer list as well as its SKUs.

In 1994, the company acquired the assets of H&H Purveyors Inc., which was based in East Rutherford, NJ. This regional wholesaler opened yet another new door for Reddy Raw: the lucrative and growing deli segment.

Like Sam, Henry, (who became president in 1988) possessed a keen sense of where the industry was heading, and where opportunity lay. The acquisition of H&H would prove prophetic as delis and convenience stores began to stock more frozen items to meet customer demands for convenience and variety.

On any given day, deli deliverymen from all over metro NY visit the Reddy Raw warehouse to pick up a variety of goods (including frozens) from the warehouse. The jobber cash and carry now comprises a sizeable portion of the companies business.

Today, the original vision of Sam Baum remains a vibrant part of Reddy Raw's unique roll in the food service industry. Its 1,300 SKUs are all high volume items that are among the staples of any food service business. The company's tremendous warehouse and extensive transportation network allow it to blanket the entire Northeast and Middle Atlantic states with a variety of core products.

The company has also invested heavily in technology to ensure more accurate orders and deliveries. Currently, Reddy Raw enjoys a pick rate of more that 99%.

The role of Reddy Raw in today's food service industry becomes even more crucial as the market place becomes for manifold. With space at a premium many broad liners can no longer afford to store every item that their varied clientele wants. Reddy Raw fill the need of independent distribution by stocking the very base items that every distributor desperately needs but can not find the space for.

As the future of the distribution segment points to mergers and consolidations, Reddy Raw stands poised to fill the needs of its ever changing customer base, once again fulfilling the original vision of Sam Baum to be a company that customers can turn to for basic, high demand commodities.