Mission statement shapes corporate responsibility
by Mary Margaret Stewart, staff writer
As a longtime wholesaler, Salt Lake City, Utah-based Associated Food Stores holds a sense of corporate responsibility.
CEO Neal Berube believes this responsibility shines through in the company’s mission statement – enriching lives, one retailer, one family, one meal at a time.
“Enriching lives – not only the lives of our team members, the lives of our retailers, but those who also live in our communities,” Berube added.
One of the activities that Associated’s executive staff has embraced is reading to kids in the community.
Another is serving meals at homeless shelters or food banks. And team members have gotten involved as well.
“We focus on, not only serving each other and serving our retailers, but serving our communities. And I think that’s a strength of the independent retailer,” Berube said.
“We have retailers who serve on volunteer fire departments, serve on city council, make massive donations to local food pantries and many other various meaningful efforts in their community.
“When we talk about caring and being compassionate and being committed, the actions of our team imitate that…one of the threads of our culture is serving others. I think we do feel a need to give back to the communities.”
Part of giving back to the community for the Associated family is supporting various charities. The wholesaler encourages its team members to do so, too.
“We’re involved in a lot of things, and we get approached by a lot of charities,” Berube said.
“There’s a lot of needs out there, but one of the things we try to do is participate with charities that affect our team.
“It might be muscular dystrophy, it might be the American Heart Association, March of Dimes – we try to help wherever we can, but we try to focus on charities that affect the Associated family.”
