H & H Foodservice history

Ben E. Keith is named for Benjamin Ellington Keith, who was born in F ort Worth, Texas, in 1882.

John Sexton & Co. began as a tea and coffee merchant in Chicago in 1883.

1906: The company is founded as Harkrider-Morrison Company.

1909: Ben E. Keith is named as the company's first salesman.

The first, Wi chita Fruit and Vegetable Company, opened in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1910.

Ben Keith quickly made himself an important part of the business, and his contribution was recognized in 1911 when the company changed its name to Harkrider-Keith-Cooke Company.

West Texas would be s erved by the 1914 opening of a branch in Abilene, Texas, the Abilene Fruit and Vegetable Company.

Keith became vice-president a nd treasurer, and then in 1918, he bought a controlling interest when two of the owners dropped out.

In 1928 Keith paid a personal visit to Adolphus Busch in St Louis and s ecured the Texas distributorship for Anheuser-Busch products.

1931: The Ben E. Keith Company name is adopted.

With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, A nheuser-Busch returned to beer brewing, and Ben E. Keith was well pos itioned to take advantage of the situation.

Sowing the Seeds of an Industry: 1940-70

Our personal, hands-on approach to salesmanship and customer service has been the driving principle of our success since our first day of business in 1943.

Our family business got its start in 1944, when brothers Melvin and Israel Tapick hatched the idea of selling fresh poultry from the yard behind their mother’s neighborhood grocery store.

On April 10, 1946, John has a load of Andy Christy’s New Hampshire Reds delivered by airplane to Fayetteville, a first for Northwest Arkansas.

John incorporates his growing business as Tyson Feed and Hatchery, Inc., in 1947.

The first distinction between the two groups came about in 1951, with the formation of the Association of Institutional Distributors.

Acquisitions included Valley Industries of Las Vegas, Arrow Paper and Supply Company, based in Connecticut, Squeri Food Service of Cincinnati, and Mazo-Lerch Company, Inc., the 70-year-old food distributor based in northern Virginia that had held the first food fair in 1953.

In 1958, Mazo-Lerch held the first food show, and was one of the first distributors to offer both custom-cut meats and beverage dispenser programs.

Ben Keith died in 1959, not only leaving behind a thriving business b ut also a legacy of personal accomplishments.

1962: Gaston Hallam is named president.

Len Hartley started manufacturing beverages and syrups in his home way back in 1964.

In 1965, Americans spent just 20 cents of every food dollar for food away from home.

In 1966 a Shreveport, Louisiana produce company was acquire d, and two years later The Panhandle Fruit Co. of Amarillo was bought to form another branch office.

Consolidated Foods bought the old Pearce-Young-Angel distribution network in 1971 and merged it with its Monarch Foods subsidiary to form PYA/Monarch, which would eventually become the foundation of US Foodservice.

S.E. Rykoff went public in 1972, one of the few foodservice distributors to do so.

1981: The company begins to focus more fully on foodservice, b roadening its offerings beyond produce.

By 1982, the foodservice distribution was a $69 billion industry.

In 1983, Tyson Foods acquires Mexican Original, Inc., a flour and corn tortilla processing plant in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Meanwhile, in Greenville, South Carolina, number two PYA/Monarch bought Fleming Foodservice of Austin, Texas, raising its 1984 sales volume to an estimated $1.3 billion.

By 1986, Americans were spending one-third of every food dollar outside the supermarket, and the foodservice distribution had grown to a $78 billion industry.

By April 1989, Sara Lee Corporation had decided to sell off the northern division of PYA/Monarch, citing dissatisfaction with its performance.

JP Foodservice Distributors passed the $1 billion mark in its first year, with sales for fiscal 1990 of $1.02 billion.

In 1991, Morris rejoined Len in a full-time capacity with H&H Products.

In July 1993 it began expanding its Denton w arehouse.

In November 1994, five years after it was created, the company adopted the name JP Foodservice, Inc. and went public in November, listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol JPFS. Sara Lee Corporation now held 37 percent of JP common stock.

JP's business, which for fiscal 1995 reached $1.12 billion, was about 55 percent independent (hospital cafeterias, family-owned restaurants) and 45 percent chains.

Yet the two companies failed to reach agreement on several factors, including valuation (JP's stock price had gone up in expectation of the merger), structure, and dilution of earnings to existing shareholders, and the deal fell through in February 1996.

Then, in December 1997, the company jumped into second place among foodservice distributors with the purchase of rival Rykoff-Sexton Inc. for $1.4 billion.

In the $141 billion industry, according to a July 1998 article in Baltimore Business Journal, the top 50 companies accounted for only 28 percent of sales, and most of those sales, 23.7 percent, were by the ten biggest companies.

KeyImpact was formed in 2000, through the merger of Key Brokerage in New Jersey and Impact Sales in Maryland.

In 2001, Tyson Foods acquired IBP, inc., becoming the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork.

To keep apace wi th demand, the company in 2003 began to build a $20 million wareh ouse in Amarillo, expanding the current operation from 61,000 square feet to about 250,000 square feet.

They combined to generate sales of $1.5 b illion in 2004, a 12.4 percent increase over the previous year.

In 2010, Tyson Foods marks its tenth year as a partner with Share Our Strength, donating more than 76 million pounds of products to hunger and disaster relief.

In August 2014, Tyson Foods, Inc., completes its acquisition of The Hillshire Brands Company, resulting in a company with more than $40 billion in annual sales and a diverse portfolio including brands such as Tyson®, Wright®, Jimmy Dean®, Ball Park®, State Fair®, and Hillshire Farm®.

In April 2017, Tyson Foods announces the acquisition of AdvancePierre Foods.

In November 2018, Tyson Foods completes acquisition of Keystone Foods, a leading supplier of chicken, beef, fish and pork to the growing global foodservice industry.

In February 2019, Tyson Foods announces an agreement to acquire Thai and European Operations from BRF S.A., including processing facilities in Thailand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, to expand offerings of value-added protein in global markets.