ONTARIO, Calif. -- Pro & Sons is more than just a Hispanic retailer -- it's also in the distribution, trucking and commissary businesses, Mike Provenzano, president and CEO, told SN.
years and currently covers 80,000 square feet.
Of the total, 28,000 square feet is devoted to dry grocery; 15,000 square feet to produce coolers; and 12,000 square feet to newly developed office space. The other 25,000 square feet is leased out on a year-to-year basis "so it's available when we need it," Michael Provenzano 3rd, the company's vice president and chief financial officer, said.
At its current size the facility is capable of serving up to 15 or 20 stores, he added. The warehouse was necessary because of the amount of fresh product the company uses, he explained. "For the tortillerias alone, we run two or three truckloads of corn a week," he said, "and we buy tomato sauce in straight truckloads."
Pro & Sons also warehouses a lot of specialty foods that it buys in bulk, 85% of which comes from Unified Western Grocers, its Los Angeles-based wholesaler, he said.
The company also operates a 25,000-square-foot commissary near the distribution facility "so we're able to achieve consistency at every store," the elder Provenzano explained. The commissary supplies some packaged items that include tostadas, chips and salsas and about 10% of the baked goods to the stores, "but only on items where we won't hurt the freshness by preparing it centrally," he said.
"We don't want to lose the element of theater in the stores," Michael Provenzano added.
Pro & Sons is also in the trucking business to accommodate its far-flung retail operations, which stretch from Bakersfield, Arvin and Delano, Calif., in the state's Central Valley, south to Los Angeles, east to here and farther east into Phoenix -- a radius of 180 miles west and 350 miles east.
"Because of those distances, we felt we needed to operate our own transportation," Provenzano explained. "It's five hours to Phoenix and three hours to Central California, so we're able to cross-dock products we get from Unified and combine them with specialty grocery items we buy direct, along with corn for the tortillerias and meat and produce items, and ship them to each store on one truck."
In addition, he said Pro & Sons has become adept at buying used equipment from a variety of sources, including retailers who are going out of business, on eBay or at auctions. "We've done that for the past two or three years, and we've gotten some very good equipment at a fraction of what it would have cost new," Provenzano said. "The equipment for our Bakersfield store, for example, came almost totally from a Lucky store that closed, including the carpeting."
"While we were learning about buying equipment, we got beat up on some purchases of mixers and ovens, but as long as you do well eight out of 10 times, you're doing good," Michael Provenzano pointed out.
