America's Beer Distributors

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The parking lot of Premium Distributors of Virginia after snow was removed from delivery trucks.When winter weather approaches, it’s not uncommon for consumers to hit the stores to stock up on the items they’ll need to weather the storm – including beer.  This winter was no different, with folks flooding stores ahead of snowstorms that slammed the Washington, D.C., metro area and a large part of the Northeast with record accumulation.  After back-to-back storms in February, the season’s snow tally in Washington, D.C., beat the previous record of 54.4 inches, set in 1898-1899.  Thanks to the hard work and preparation of local distributors, beer remained available on taps and on store shelves even when other items like milk, bread, toilet paper and produce were long gone.

According to John Zeltner, President of Premium Distributors of Virginia, “Premium was able to operate even when the federal government was shut down.”  While the federal government closed for four days in a row, Premium was able to operate every day but one. 

To keep up with deliveries, Premium shoveled snow from their building roofs and from the top of each of their trucks.  “To knock the snow off the trucks we had an assembly line of the delivery trucks driving out to a line of ops guys shoveling them off, and another team plowing that snow away to make room for the next truck,” Zeltner said.  “The sales department wrote orders for delivery according to the days the parking lots and streets were to be plowed.  We managed the process to look after our customers and keep our suppliers’ beer moving.”

While it was a very challenging time – which included having to deal with a gas leak – Zeltner said sales for the week far exceeded last year’s numbers.  “Our customers have been supportive… I couldn’t be prouder of our team.”

Mark Stephens, the Vice President of Operations and Administration for Guiffre Distributing in Springfield, Virginia, summed things up when he said:  “Nothing brings a team together more tightly than working together to ensure every delivery is made in adverse conditions.”

Further north in Rhode Island, beer distributor McLaughlin & Moran, Inc. made news when severe winter weather caused it to make the rare decision to cancel beer deliveries on Wednesday, February 10.  The company’s traffic and safety director Charlie Armstrong was in early that morning and, after evaluating the National Weather Bureau’s forecast and considering a request by the state’s Emergency Management Task Force that all non-essential vehicles stay off the road, he made the decision to cancel deliveries for the day.  The safety of McLaughlin & Moran, Inc.’s employees and other motorists was a top concern.  Additionally, several communities had already issued parking bans that would have made deliveries to many accounts difficult to impossible.  The company runs 17 to 18 trucks on an average day, Monday through Friday, making a total of 240 to 250 stops. 

Armstrong told the Providence Journal, “We usually go out.”  Canceling beer deliveries is a decision the company probably makes about once a year, he said.