Last updated on February 26th, 2021 at 12:06 pm
by Mary Margaret Stewart, staff writer
For Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distributing Co., David Bullard said the most challenging part of 2020 was finding a balance between supply chain demands and providing for its retailers. And as the entire industry witnessed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, balance was hard to come by.
“With the tremendously increased demand, product availability at both wholesale and retail have resulted in much lower fill rates,” said Bullard, president and CEO of the Birmingham, Alabama-based wholesaler. “Though getting much better, these challenges still exist.”
But the ability to manage the unprecedented issues of 2020 was made possible by the commitment of Piggly Wiggly’s retail and warehouse employees.
“These frontline heroes carried a heavy load during the pandemic in order to serve their communities,” Bullard said. “It has been inspiring to watch.”
Turning to the future, Bullard said the wholesaler is working to making technological improvements, something that is on the minds of grocery industry people everywhere.
“We are continuing on our path of revolutionizing our warehouse from a technology perspective,” he said. “We are investing tremendous amounts of money and applying a great deal of resources to improve both our technology infrastructure as well as the services and efficiencies that we provide to our retailers.
“We want to be state-of-the-art, current and integrated with all of our systems, and be the technology leader of cooperatives available to retailers in the Southeast.”
To read more about what Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distributing Co. is doing in 2021, check out The Shelby Report‘s story about Sweet Grown Alabama. To learn more about the wholesaler, visit the company website here.
