FOOD AND DRINK
‘ what a brilliant idea , why didn ’ t I think of that ?’ and he went back to Texas and started doing it .
“ So he became the first and only supplier in Houston who was cutting up and selling chicken parts , and our company soon became the largest chicken supplier to all of the retail stores in the city .”
And Tapick says the company ’ s growth over the last seven or eight years , during which time it has doubled in size into one which turned nearly US $ 200mm last year , is also due to some ingenuity and clever thinking .
Diversifying Before the financial crisis , Martin Preferred Foods was supplying to mainly white tablecloth establishments such as high-end restaurants , hotels and country clubs throughout the state of Texas . But in 2008 , when the crisis hit , fewer people were looking to spend high dollars on food , and sales slumped throughout that segment of the industry .
Tapick says : “ Rather than just staying with the customer segment that we ’ d always serviced , my father Michael had the ingenuity to say : ‘ You know , we ’ ve developed some great capabilities in processing meat and chicken and selling highquality specialty products to this one customer segment … we could leverage all of that culinary and processing expertise and go offer similar high-quality products to more of the mid-and-lower market type customers that were not as badly impacted by the
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