Texas has seen some of the most development and growth of any state in recent memory. Cities like Houston, Austin and Dallas are rapidly growing hubs, hot on the trails of even cities like Los Angeles and New York. With their recent acquisition of Great Southwest Paper, Imperial Dade, the nation’s leading distributor of food service packaging and janitorial supplies, is set to support that growth.
The rapid growth of the Lone Star State, combined with the Pandemic driven surge in takeout and delivery popularity, makes this the perfect time to add such as Great Southwest Paper to their portfolio. “We’ve known the Vannatta family at Southwest for a long time,” said President of Imperial Dade, Jason Tillis. “We think the Texas Market is an extremely important one, and that Southwest is a great, customer focused business. We’ve been looking to work with them for some time, even prior to the pandemic, so this was the perfect opportunity.”
“The favorable demographics were one of the main factors that drove this decision,” said Tillis. “We found that not only was there a plethora of new customers that we could tap into, many of our existing customers were transitioning to expand in Texas as well. Because our customers’ best interests are what drive our every decision, following them was only natural. Furthermore, our acquisition of Southwest will even further ramp up and improve the services we can provide them with.”
Cities such as Houston, Austin and Dallas have become incredibly diverse and vibrant. As these Texas cities attract more people and businesses of all ages and varieties, it’s only natural that the food industry follows as well. Many businesses looking to setup shop in Texas are looking to Imperial Dade to supply them with the products they need in order to grow and become successful.
Although the pandemic magnified many trends and niches that had been budding prior, Imperial Dade has always had their customer-driven methodology as their focus. “One thing we’ve definitely seen with the pandemic is an acceleration of trends that were growing before it began, such as takeout and delivery,” Imperial Dade’s president continued. “Many companies struggled at first to accommodate the increases and changes in what customers were looking for. At Imperial Dade however, we’ve always held our products to the highest possible standards in terms of quality, safety, and eco-friendliness. What this means is that there were never any growing pains for us. We were immediately ready to hit the ground running when our customers came looking for help, which we think has made an immense difference. All we had to do was double down on our high touch, customer focused practices. As long as our customers feel secure and safe utilizing our products, we’re happy.”
Speaking of customer oriented business practices, this is something Imperial Dade has always been known for, and is something they’ve seamlessly merged with the digital communication preference of the current times. “We’ve absolutely leveraged Zoom and other digital communication services to adapt our operations to the current climate. In fact, I’d say that our integration of these options has not only helped us adapt to the climate, it’s actually made the way we conduct business even better on a whole. With our new knowledge of digital communication services, we can get information into the hands of our reps and customers more efficiently and effectively than we ever could before. Not only is it safe, it’s something that we’ll continue to do even in the future,” remarked Tillis. Digital communication services are useful for more than just business correspondences. The Pandemic has validated Imperial Dade’s ability to provide customers with transparency when it comes to training, webinars, and other important, product related information. “We know that our customers are running themselves ragged trying to adapt their businesses to the new normal, so anything we can do to make it easier on them, we do.”
The Great Southwest Paper addition marks the 29th addition to the Imperial Dade portfolio under the Tillis regime. As the leading independently owned and operated distributor of foodservice packaging, facilities maintenance supplies and equipment in the United States, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, many people depend on Imperial Dade to run a successful business. Imperial Dade has always taken this knowledge to heart, and strives to provide services and products that match that trust.
