Keeping It Kleen acquisition adds training option to WyckWyre services

CONKLIN — WyckWyre Food & Hospitality Online Hiring Systems, a unit of Maines Paper & Food Service, Inc., acquired Keeping It Kleen, another Maines subsidiary, on Jan. 1. It’s a move designed to further WyckWyre’s goal of helping its customers boost employee retention rates through proper training.

WyckWyre did not disclose terms of the acquisition, which included all the assets of Keeping It Kleen and its two employees.

There is a growing realization in the food industry that a well-trained employee tends to stay with a company longer, says Lisa DiVirgilio, WyckWyre’s company director. WyckWyre (www.wyckwyre.com) has been looking for a while to create a management training system for its clients and found the perfect platform in its fellow Maines subsidiary Keeping It Kleen, she contends.

Keeping It Kleen got its start as a food-safety program for Maines customers to use. Founded in 2010, the company now provides online food-safety training to both independent and franchise locations. According to its website, www.keepingitkleen.com, it costs $29.99 per month for a 12-month membership to Keeping It Kleen, which includes 10 training modules. Additional training components cost $10 per module.

 “It just made sense for us to purchase Keeping It Kleen,” DiVirgilio says. Keeping It Kleen continues to operate under its own name and offers its array of online training programs. In the future, the company’s online platform will host WyckWyre Train, a management-training program currently in development, she says.

The program will offer clients the ability to manage branded training content, assign courses to employees, and track overall progress. It will team up with WyckWyre Hire, the company’s online hiring service, and WyckWyre On Board, which offers clients the option to have applications complete their new employee paperwork electronically.

The ultimate goal, DiVirgilio says, is helping business clients find the best applicants for the job and then helping clients retain those people using just one software platform.

A well-trained employee is 40 percent more likely to stay at the job for a minimum of one year, she says. Companies that invest in a learning-management platform see, on average, a 30 percent reduction in turnover in the course of a year, she adds.

That’s important because employee turnover costs money, both in lost productivity and in the efforts to find and train a replacement, DiVirgilio says.

WyckWyre will formally launch WyckWyre Train at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago in mid-May, she says. As many as 60,000 restaurant industry professionals will attend the show over the course of three days, providing an ideal target audience. “You can imagine how big this will be for us,” she says.

In the meantime, WyckWyre and Keeping It Kleen are cross-promoting their services between existing clients. Some of Keeping It Kleen and WyckWyre’s local clients include Tioga Downs Casino in Nichols, Burger Mondays Bar & Grille in Binghamton, Number 5 Restaurant in Binghamton, Fly Creek Cider Mill in Fly Creek, Ithaca Ale House, and Arooga’s Grille House & Sports Bar in Pennsylvania. WyckWyre also provides hiring services on a national level for more than 900 Wendy’s locations and a number of Chili’s Grill & Bar restaurants.

WyckWyre, which launched in 2010 with just two employees, currently employs 12 people (including the two just added from Keeping It Kleen) and will add two more employees over the next several weeks, DiVirgilio says.

While she declined to release revenue figures, DiVirgilio says WyckWyre’s revenue grew 130 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and she hopes to see revenue grow 150 percent in 2014.

Both WyckWyre and Keeping It Kleen continue to operate from Maines’ corporate headquarters at 1010 Broome Corporate Parkway in Conklin. Maines (www.maines.net) is a privately held food-service distributor with annual revenue approaching $4 billion and customers in 36 states.

Contact The Business Journal at news@cnybj.com

CONKLIN — WyckWyre Food & Hospitality Online Hiring Systems, a unit of Maines Paper & Food Service, Inc., acquired Keeping It Kleen, another Maines subsidiary, on Jan. 1. It’s a move designed to further WyckWyre’s goal of helping its customers boost employee retention rates through proper training.

WyckWyre did not disclose terms of the acquisition, which included all the assets of Keeping It Kleen and its two employees.

There is a growing realization in the food industry that a well-trained employee tends to stay with a company longer, says Lisa DiVirgilio, WyckWyre’s company director. WyckWyre (www.wyckwyre.com) has been looking for a while to create a management training system for its clients and found the perfect platform in its fellow Maines subsidiary Keeping It Kleen, she contends.

Keeping It Kleen got its start as a food-safety program for Maines customers to use. Founded in 2010, the company now provides online food-safety training to both independent and franchise locations. According to its website, www.keepingitkleen.com, it costs $29.99 per month for a 12-month membership to Keeping It Kleen, which includes 10 training modules. Additional training components cost $10 per module.

 “It just made sense for us to purchase Keeping It Kleen,” DiVirgilio says. Keeping It Kleen continues to operate under its own name and offers its array of online training programs. In the future, the company’s online platform will host WyckWyre Train, a management-training program currently in development, she says.

The program will offer clients the ability to manage branded training content, assign courses to employees, and track overall progress. It will team up with WyckWyre Hire, the company’s online hiring service, and WyckWyre On Board, which offers clients the option to have applications complete their new employee paperwork electronically.

The ultimate goal, DiVirgilio says, is helping business clients find the best applicants for the job and then helping clients retain those people using just one software platform.

A well-trained employee is 40 percent more likely to stay at the job for a minimum of one year, she says. Companies that invest in a learning-management platform see, on average, a 30 percent reduction in turnover in the course of a year, she adds.

That’s important because employee turnover costs money, both in lost productivity and in the efforts to find and train a replacement, DiVirgilio says.

WyckWyre will formally launch WyckWyre Train at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago in mid-May, she says. As many as 60,000 restaurant industry professionals will attend the show over the course of three days, providing an ideal target audience. “You can imagine how big this will be for us,” she says.

In the meantime, WyckWyre and Keeping It Kleen are cross-promoting their services between existing clients. Some of Keeping It Kleen and WyckWyre’s local clients include Tioga Downs Casino in Nichols, Burger Mondays Bar & Grille in Binghamton, Number 5 Restaurant in Binghamton, Fly Creek Cider Mill in Fly Creek, Ithaca Ale House, and Arooga’s Grille House & Sports Bar in Pennsylvania. WyckWyre also provides hiring services on a national level for more than 900 Wendy’s locations and a number of Chili’s Grill & Bar restaurants.

WyckWyre, which launched in 2010 with just two employees, currently employs 12 people (including the two just added from Keeping It Kleen) and will add two more employees over the next several weeks, DiVirgilio says.

While she declined to release revenue figures, DiVirgilio says WyckWyre’s revenue grew 130 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and she hopes to see revenue grow 150 percent in 2014.

Both WyckWyre and Keeping It Kleen continue to operate from Maines’ corporate headquarters at 1010 Broome Corporate Parkway in Conklin. Maines (www.maines.net) is a privately held food-service distributor with annual revenue approaching $4 billion and customers in 36 states.

Contact The Business Journal at news@cnybj.com