Banta Foods Inc. delivers the goods

Banta Foods Inc.

Address: 1620 N. Packer Road, Springfield, MO 65803

Top executive: Chuck Banta, president and CEO

2003 revenues: $100 million

2004 revenues: $143.2 million

2005 revenues: $163 million

3-year growth: 63 percent

Employees: 205

When Lenny’s Sub Shop opened in February in Springfield, Banta Foods notched another local customer.

Banta Foods serves about 25 Lenny’s shops in the Memphis, Tenn., area. The regional franchise represents Banta Food’s latest growth market, one that has helped propel the Springfield food-service distributorship to $163 million in sales and 63 percent revenue growth over the last three years – making it the seventh-fastest growing company in Springfield Business Journal’s 2006 Dynamic Dozen.

Banta Foods is no stranger to the Dynamic Dozen. In 2004, it cracked the fast-growth list at No. 2, recognized for its 65 percent growth and its $100 million sales milestone.

Since then, Banta Foods has exceeded company revenue projections by a steady $13 million each year.

Fourth-generation President and CEO Chuck Banta chalks up the latest surge to regional franchises – such as Lenny’s Sub Shop – within a 300-mile radius of Springfield.

“We focus on that midrange chain-type customer,” Banta said, naming 54th Street Grill, Timberline Steakhouse, Shorty Smalls, Freddy’s Frozen Custard and the franchise accounts for Springfield’s own Andy’s Frozen Custard.

“One of the things that helps us is the geographical lanes that we cover,” Banta added. “We’re able to cover a lot of these accounts out of one distribution point. That’s a good selling point for us.”

Banta Foods trucks deliver to clients in Kansas City and St. Louis every day and to clients in Tulsa and Oklahoma City four or five times a week. Memphis, Lenny’s hometown, is another active market. In all, Banta Foods delivers food products, kitchen supplies and equipment to restaurants in 10 states, a geographic footprint that has held steady since 2003. However, in that time, the number of active client accounts has doubled to 3,000.

While the regional chain business surges and the independent, single-unit customers hold steady, the majority of business comes from national multiunit restaurants – specifically Applebee’s and Panera Bread.

“They are the main ones that drive us out to those 10 states,” Banta said.

Banta Foods supplies product to about 125 Applebee’s restaurants and about 80 Panera Bread cafés.

Banta Foods has traveled a long way from the 20-employee produce company it started as in 1895. From a 20,000-square-foot warehouse under the Grant Avenue viaduct at Wall Street, Banta Foods’ predecessor Stewart Produce Co. delivered fresh produce to Springfield-area grocery stores.

After adding retail frozen food in the mid-1950s, Banta Foods capitalized on the growing food-service industry by becoming a full-line distributor in the mid-1980s.

Today, technology has firmly taken its place in Banta Foods’ history.

Salespeople send orders from their client restaurants via laptops. Trucks are equipped with global positioning systems, and drivers text message dispatchers in the home office. And Banta Foods software allows for Internet orders, as well as data, food cost and inventory reports.

“We’ve been at the forefront on the technology side,” Banta said. “More than products that we sell, we sell systems. The ordering is all done over the Internet or proprietary software. It allows (clients) access to our inventory – what we have on hand and what we have coming in.”

Banta said 90 percent of orders come in electronically.

On the road, technology makes for more seamless deliveries, Banta said. “For instance, if they’re running behind the schedule that we have loaded into the computer, it automatically beeps customer service to let them know,” he said.

For these efforts, Banta Foods has received national recognition, most recently International Foodservice Distributors Association’s Best of Show Diamond Award for a corporate identity video that’s the centerpiece of a new marketing campaign. Banta Foods executives traveled to an IFDA show in California last summer to receive the award and present the video, “The Affordable Alternative.” The campaign was designed locally in partnership with Steve Eiffert of E2 LLC.