food and drink manufacturers ?

Question 1

I am wondering where I can get a list of all the food and drink manufacturers for a particular country?

For example if one wanted to know what food/drink manufacturers are in the US.

Question 2

Is there a simple list of all the products that a particular company creates.
I know pesico on there site, gives I believe all there items / brands they make.


The reason why I ask is I am wondering how (initially first opening up) grocery stores know what products / manufactures to go to if they are not made aware of all the manufactures they have a choice to go thru. And even if a grocery store used a wholesaler/distributer company like sysco ( and by-pass the manufacturers directly ) they would still need to get a list of all sysco products they get from the different manufactures they have accounts with. For example just because a whole saler get products from pesico doesn't mean they get all the products pesico offers ... they could chose to just get certain items of pesico ( unless they normally have all of a particular manufactures products by law or by a good standard choices )

So the 2 basic questions come down to getting a complete list of manufacturers for a given industry and a complete list of the products a manufacturer has. Only with this information a grocery store ( or a store in general ) can truely make the best desicion for there stores.

Anybody have a grocery store or restranunt and care to post how you went about find the right places to buy products for your store ?
Did you go to any trade shows or just do some research and hope for the best

 

There all the same big players, its the distribution companies that are different. Basically you can take 90% of all drinks and assign them to Coke, Pepsi,Arizona,Tropicana or Nestle(They own all the bottled water companies. Zepherhills, Ozarka, etc..).

 

1) If this is true then what is the difference between a wholesaler like sysco and a distribution company ? (basically is there any difference in terms wholesaler and distributor/distribution companies )

2) can a retailer store buy directly from the manufacturer or must he go thru a wholesaler or distributor to get the products. I called pepsi directly and they asked me if I would like to create an account so I guess you can ... but do they deliver or is it just the distributors that deliver to people/places?

So for example if you buy directly from the manufacturer it will be the cheapest prices but will they deliver? Or must you go and pick it up your self or hire a truck for that??? Maybe that is the differences in ordering thru a distributor then directly from the manufacture .... i.e transportation costs + small marginal distributor profit

3) Is there away to get the price for a particular item based on the quantity you are going to buy of that item (both from the manufactures and the wholesaler /distributors ) so one can compare prices per quantity of given items
( the answer is yes when ordering electronic parts / chips on most online sites like mouser, digkey ,new egg, they will tell you how much per quantity but for other sites like food it seems to be hidden )

4) Does location effect prices of manufacturer items? If you are going to buy from a manufacturer directly and do the pick up yourself?

5)

This was still not fully cleared up since even if there is a handful of water making companies as you said "Basically you can take 90% of all drinks and assign them to Coke, Pepsi,Arizona,Tropicana or Nestle" what are the other 10% and do they make anything worthy of getting interms of water products.

Also how does one find out that "Basically you can take 90% of all drinks and assign them to Coke, Pepsi,Arizona,Tropicana or Nestle" i.e how do you know this to be 100% true or gather this info?

 

1. Sysco is a wholesale distributer, mainly for resturaunts and bars. You also have pmg, Master perveyors, etc..

2. Its rare for the actual Mnf. to sell to the end customer or store. They may take the order but pepin or another distributer would deliver it.

3. Yup just call your distributer like sysco and get their 8000 page catalog. Its free. First time I saw it I was shocked. couldn't believe they sold 2000 different types of shrimp.

4. No shipping price covers that. otherwise they will have a distribution network so there will be no shipping and a truck will just drop off products at workplace or house.

5. Yes their are 100's if independent bottled water companies. Saratoga, Evian, Spring Water LLc, etc.. Nestle owns 64 bottled water companies. http://www.nestle-waters.com/
About 90% of all beverages coming from those companies just look at the label at the bottom. You'll see Pepsi Co, Coca Cola (these cover almost all softdrinks, juices, and waters), Tropicana for juices, or nestle for waters, flavoured milks, etc.. Then you just have 10-20% of other drinks that aren't owned my major labels. Next time you goto the circle K start picking up drinks and looking at the label for the mnf or importer.

Its the same with bathroom supplies. Everything in your bathroom is made by 5 companies. unilever, proctor and Gamble, Johnson and something, etc.. just goto your bathroom and look at the bottoms of the labels.

 

Most chains have their own white label products.

Obviously a small store would order from a local distributor- or pay for high shipping charges. It is not rational to have a small quantity of cans delivered by a truck or by container freight.

If you want a full container, this should not be a problem.

 

Which are normal generic brands relabeled. Publix, Hanaford, Kroger, etc.. All buy the same canned corn, drinks or what ever then put their label on it. They don't actually mnf anything.

 

so then I guess my question is how does one know who manufactures a food product.... from its private label company ?

 

Code on can. or read the label carefully. Each mnf has codes it put on their products. For instance I went into kitchen and grabbed a can of soup. heres whats on the bottom.

June 01 2013____PF ____06021
s8025_________________0112


Then I grab a bottle of Alcohol from CVS has a number code printed on bottle, also has a part number on lablel. And on bottom says 21 Vi-Jon
http://www.vijon.com/

You just gotta look real hard and figure it out but the numbers and info is there.

 

so even if somebody does a private label for a product there is away to look on the product to see you originally manufactured it Yes/no ?

 

YES is the answer.