(My St. Louis Small Business Monthly article)
Few people more fervently take to
heart the song lyric, ‘root, root, root for the home team’ than the St. Louis
Cardinals’ baseball faithful.
Why shouldn’t those same proud St.
Louisans also go to bat for other quality hometown products?
St. Louis is renown for possessing
more than its fair share of top-rate restaurants. So, good food is one item St. Louisans can
easily appreciate. But getting an
individual food product into the mainstream is not always an easy task.
“You do have an edge if it’s a local
product,” said Jim Alexander of the Alexander, Koetting, Poole & Buehrle
food brokers. “The buyer has pride in
the city and state, and knows a local product helps the economy. It’s difficult to get quick response, but
once people have tried a good product, there’s no problem selling it.”
That’s precisely what one of
Alexander’s clients, Reuben Anderson, learned a decade ago.
Working for McDonnell-Douglas at the
time, Anderson yearned to try something on his own. In 1982, after about a year of
experimentation in his basement, Anderson started Andy’s Seasonings. He left McDonnell-Douglas in 1985, having
perfected his recipes for chicken and fish coatings, breadings and seasoned
salt along the way.
Andy’s Seasonings can currently be
found in 17 states. Locally, one of its
marketplaces is Dierberg’s, which itself is a good example of how a local
entity can survive and thrive.
Dierberg’s markets, which began with the old Craig Road store in 1854,
now has 14 sites in the St. Louis area.
“We buy a lot of local products,”
Dierberg’s buyer Bernie Moran said. “We
have no official store policy on that, and we don’t necessarily go out of our
way to find them. They seem to come our
way…like Maria & Sons pasta, Max German meats and the milk companies.
“People tend to buy products from
here. It sounds corny, but they want to
help our community. The big thing for us
is the people are here to answer any problems right away. Distribution is another plus. We get our products right away, too.”
Leon Corbin carries that latter point
to an extreme. Owner of Ketrina, Ltd.,
Inc., Corbin even makes house calls to peddle his Corbin’s Classic original and
Cajun marinades to fellow St. Louisans. 
One shouldn’t be surprised that Corbin
goes the extra mile to find new homes for his products. After all, he painstakingly spent 15 years
developing it, and three to four more years refining both its taste and
tenderizing qualities.
“I experimented for years and years,”
Corbin said. “One day, I knew I was
close to it, and started changing one ingredient at a time. Finally, one day I was doing a round steak on
the grill, turned it over and it tore off the fork. I thought maybe they gave me the wrong cut of
meat. But I tried another round steak
with the same results.
“People started asking me about the
recipe. How much would I charge them for
it? I turned down a seven-figure
offer. I filled orders for four to six
people, then two or three more. It got
to the point where I couldn’t keep up with the orders. The demand was so much greater than I could
possibly supply it!”
That’s when Arcobasso began
manufacturing, packaging and delivering for the various clients Corbin had
already lined up.
Naturally, grocery stores are the
prime outlet through which food items can be sold. Another outlet for Corbin is the Winery of
the Little Hills Garden Restaurant in St. Charles.
“I ran into him one day, and he said
he had a new marinade,” Winery owner Martha Kooyumjian said. “I tried it because we have a lot of grilled
foods. It’s a great product—‘Corbin’s
Classic’ marinated chicken breast and Cajun charbroiled hamburgers are Winery
menu items. We also sell it in our gift
shop.”
National Supermarkets, purchasers of
both Corbin and Anderson products, is interested in buying and reselling local
items. National teams with KMOX Radio
for an annual autumn Holiday Harvest promotion held in Kiener Plaza, featuring
only local products. National also
prints a special two-page Governor’s Sale circular, listing all its store items
which are produced in St. Louis and Metro East.
“We don’t have a policy on local goods,
but if it’s a St. Louis manufactured product, we definitely have a preference
for it,” said Ron Jezierski, National’s director of grocery business.
“Economy-wise, it helps the
manufacturer grow, and creates jobs. If
it’s locally manufactured and all else is right, we lean toward it. That’s why the majority of foods manufactured
in St. Louis are in our stores.”
When a product is offered to National,
it is assigned to one of 10 or 11 category managers (formerly known as buyers)
with whom an appointment is made if there is any initial interest. Once National becomes more familiar with the
product, a determination is made before a panel. Quality, price and the needs of the consumer
on a daily basis are considered before a decision is made.
All the buying outlets are pretty much
in agreement that no one who has spent a good deal of time developing a product
should feel hesitant about approaching them.
“We’re always open to new products,”
Moran said, “and everyone should look to purchase local products. We’re always pushing ‘Buy U.S.A.’ Why not 'Buy St. Louis?'”
