Wooster’s Friendly Wholesale has new owners for growing business
WOOSTER – There is the Main Building, the OB (Other Building), State Building and Vending Building.
And in the next few years there might be another, called, “Maybe NB, New Building,” said Friendly Wholesale’s new owner, Matt Plocki, with a laugh.
It’s only been a few weeks since Plocki, his equity partner, Austin Miller; and General Manager Jeremy Menegay took over the business, so they didn’t have much time to make more formal names for the buildings, which have a total of 72,000 square feet.
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Their plans for the 72-year-old supply business at the Cushing Street facility near downtown are not ridiculous, no matter what the buildings are called.
“We’ve maintained and expanded the employee base here in Wooster,” said Plocki, who has had the same business in Pittsburgh for about 20 years. “We have 22 full-time employees and we expect to grow that to almost 30 over the next two years.”
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George Selders started Friendly Wholesale in 1950 as a general wholesale business in the Main Building, established in the 1890s and had several businesses in it before Selders took over, including a wooden toy factory. , according to his daughter, Joann Davidson, who has been involved in the family business most of her life.
Davidson said as his dad expanded the business, he bought the State Building, which he said the state of Ohio used for storage, and the Vending Building, and built the Other Building.
While Davidson began running the business with her husband, Mark, in the 1990s as his father went into semi-retirement and after he died in the 2000s, he focused it on food service supplies and janitorial supplies for in other businesses, schools and churches to regularly use the product classes.
The new ownership group will continue Davidson’s focus and will eventually add some new products.
“In Pittsburgh, we’re the largest supplier of coffee on the East Coast and we want to bring the products here to central Ohio,” said Plocki, who plans to buy a condo or townhouse in the area so he can share the his time between Wooster. and Pittsburgh. He has a business installing restaurant equipment in the PIttsburgh area, too.
There will also be a showroom for walk-in customers in the Friendly Wholesale Main Building, which is about 10% of its business, according to Plocki.
Plocki’s partner, Miller, started Pitt Specialty Supply, Plocki’s facility supply business in Pittsburgh, with 34 employees, as an intern for about six months and moved to a full-time position about five years later after he graduated from Penn State University.
Menegay, who lives in Uniontown, got to know Plocki and Miller while covering five states working for a chemical manufacturer in Ohio. They convinced him to be a part of their new business because they knew he was familiar with the area. Menegay said what convinced him was the couple’s vision for the business and the employees of Friendly Wholesale.
The friendly employees of Wholesale are delighted with the new ownership
Yvonne Hendershot, an employee for about 30 years – most of the employees have worked at Friendly Wholesale for decades – said they are happy with their new employers.
“We didn’t know Friendly was going to sell, so it was really scary who we got,” he said. “But we’re pretty happy with who we got.”
Her husband, Tim Hendershott, said he has noticed the business has grown since the change of ownership and looks forward to the future of Friendly Wholesale.
While she was also looking forward to change, Yvonne said she was glad something hadn’t changed.
“It’s like a family and still is,” he added of working at Friendly Wholesale.
Davidson, who maintains the family atmosphere his father started, said he approached buying group Friendly Wholesale and Pitt Specialty Supply of the same membership, United Group, to sell his family business because of the commitment of the time. involved in running the business at his age (he was 69); the need for its expansion; and no child will continue to run it.
United Group is the largest paper and food service purchasing group in the country with 400 member companies all independently operated and all in the facility supply business, according to Plocki, who said of Davidson offering him a marketing job he said. he will likely take over after the summer to stay connected to the business that has become such a big part of his life.
Davidson said he didn’t want to sell it to anyone. He wants someone who has the same vision for the business and the employees – not just someone who will maintain his “loyal” employees, but maintain the family’s working status.
“If you have employees for 20, 30 years you will definitely be like a family,” he said. “I talked to Matt’s employees and had the same feeling.”
Plocki said it’s not hard to maintain the family situation at Friendly Wholesale.
“What sells us here are the people,” he said. “There are some incredible people who really care about business.”
