West Coast Food Distribution Center Staying on Fast-Growth Track with Motivated Workforce, Progressive Business Practices, and Top End-of-Line Packaging Equipment

Getting to the top of the food chain of the fiercely competitive North American food distribution industry may be a life-time's worth of accomplishment for many businesses out there. But for the folks at SYSCO Corporation, Houston,Tex.-headquartered operator of 161 food products distribution centers across North America, it's just a prelude to the more encompassing and challenging task of continually strengthening its lofty marketplace status by day-to-day excellence throughout all parts of its far-flung distribution network.

Founded back in 1970, the story of SYSCO-an acronym for "Systems and Services
Company"-is one of relentless market conquest and expansion that is right up there with similar stellar corporate successes enjoyed by the likes of industry leaders Microsoft and Wal-Mart, minus a lot of the notoriety, perhaps.

Within seven years after posting first-year sales of US$115 million, the company grew to become the leading supplier of "meals-prepared-away-from-home" operations in North America, pulling in revenues of US$29.3 billion during the 2004, fiscal year.