SpartanNash extends distribution reach to West Coast

Grocery wholesaler and retailer SpartanNash is expanding its distribution footprint to the West Coast through its partnership with Coastal Pacific Food Distributors (CPFD).

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based SpartanNash said Tuesday that it will launch new operations out of CPFD’s 500,000-square-foot, multi-temperature distribution center in Stockton, Calif. Plans call for SpartanNash to begin serving current and new customers from the facility in March.

“Many of the national food retailers we distribute to are experiencing tremendous growth, which has been further propelled over the last two years due to COVID,” SpartanNash President and CEO Tony Sarsam said in a statement. “We are proud of the essential role that SpartanNash plays in the nation’s food supply chain. Having a West Coast presence allows us to provide faster, fresher and more cost-effective deliveries to our customers so they can ensure their shoppers have access to the critical food and household supplies they need.”

The new facility will give SpartanNash a presence on the West Coast. Currently, its core food distribution business mainly serves the Midwest and Southeast.

SpartanNash distributes to all 50 states, supplying 145 corporate-owned supermarkets in nine Midwestern states, over 2,100 independent grocery retailers, and key national accounts that serve thousands of additional retail locations nationwide. However, its core food distribution business primarily serves the Midwest and Southeast. With third-party partner CPFD, SpartanNash also distributes groceries to 160 military commissaries and over 400 exchanges in United States, Puerto Rico, Europe, Cuba, Honduras, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Djibouti. The company’s 18 food and military distribution centers are located across the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.

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“Our partnership with SpartanNash goes back 25 years and is one we are very proud of. We have developed and provided supply chain solutions for customers in all channels of our food distribution, including a worldwide network for our military service members and their families based around the globe,” stated Jeff King, president and CEO of Stockton-based Coastal Pacific Food Distributors. “We are incredibly excited to expand our partnership with SpartanNash to help bring necessary solutions for some of our country’s largest online and brick-and-mortar retail businesses that rely now more than ever on grocery items through our distribution channels. We look forward to the next 25 years of partnership.”

SpartanNash noted that the new arrangement with CPFD also will spur supply chain efficiencies, saving roughly 1 million gallons of diesel fuel annually — the equivalent of more than 100 tankers of gasoline or over 20,000 barrels of oil. The deal also will help SpartanNash achieve its recently announced goal of cutting its yearly fleet mileage by 10%, or more than 7 million miles, in 2022 as part of efforts to shrink the company’s carbon footprint.

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“In the past year, we have made significant progress implementing our network optimization plan, and those efforts have already driven notable productivity improvements while also enabling us to better meet our customers’ evolving demands,” according to David Petko, senior vice president and chief supply chain officer at SpartanNash. “The extension of our partnership with CPFD is another important step to ensure we have the right capacity in the right places and further enhances our operations and processes. In addition to enabling us to better serve our customers, our partnership with CPFD will positively impact the environment by augmenting our commitment to reduce our carbon emissions in 2022.”

In November, SpartanNash reported fiscal 2021 third-quarter sales of $1.03 billion, up 1.9% year over year, for the food distribution segment. The company noted that, over two years, food distribution sales were up 9.8%.