Transcript

00:00:29:06 - 00:01:03:15

Speaker 1

So in 1985 we moved to historic St Louis Produce Roe in downtown St Louis, and we operated there for 30 years, but effectively grew out of that space. Also, the space was not as conducive to the types of food safety that we really wanted to implement. We wanted to achieve really high certification. It's known as SQF and they're a type of auditing of food service companies that comes from a European standard called GFSI.

00:01:04:13 - 00:01:24:08

Speaker 1

Coming to Saint Charles County offered us a number of things: one, great place for our employees to relocate to, and many of them did. That was number one. Number two, we thought we could attract the right kind of employees and the distribution point and the building cost and things at the time made this a really attractive spot close to the highways.

00:01:25:03 - 00:01:47:20

Speaker 1

It's just an incredible feeling to be able to live out your dream in this facility made to do what we think customers are wanting, want us to do, which is to handle their product in an incredibly safe way that meets all current laws. In fact, this building has been built with that envisioned laws that have now come into play.

00:01:48:00 - 00:02:08:01

Speaker 1

And we didn't have to change one thing because we'd already baked that in essentially to the building. And we like to think that when people are driving up this street and they see our building set here, they understand our commitment to excellence. I think it's the number one thing. I think there are many, many smaller things that set us apart.

00:02:08:23 - 00:02:34:13

Speaker 1

We're still doing business effectively the way my father was in 1973. We are completely committed to our clients and we continue to adopt what they need us to adopt. and move in a way with a total focus on clients, but always bringing them excellence. Well, we've been a woman owned business since 2001. We were always certified by the City of St Louis at a time we had state certification.

00:02:34:21 - 00:03:01:14

Speaker 1

We have customers that are national in scope, and we felt that a national certification was a little bit more applicable to them. When you become nationally certified, you're everything you have has been very thoroughly vetted, you know, so that you are really woman owned, woman control, woman ran, etcetera. And so it was really, really, really neat for us to get that certification.

We're very proud of it. And then of course, with COVID 19, the shutdown, two things, we became really, really ingrained in the non-profits and understanding what they needed and what we needed. You know, we initially gave away about $375,000 worth of food to both Operation Food Search and St Louis Food Bank to get it out of our warehouse before it died; to get it out to someone that might need it. We allowed organizations to use our trucks to refrigerate their product until time of placing in the trunks.

00:03:34:24 - 00:04:00:22

Speaker 1

Our people were at every one of the huge Jamestown for Urban League, which just, I think always doing the right thing was what this company was about. And it was who I was. And this has always been a reflection of four generations of people who worked really hard, who were very genuine about what they did, and respected all the people that work for them and their customers all at one time.

00:04:01:17 - 00:04:19:18

Speaker 1

If you have a high demand or need for fresh, you know, multiple deliveries, you want your product from a state of the art warehouse, you want to do business that's local, that's family owned and controlled, where there's one call decision makers, then you'll want to do business with Ole Tyme Produce.