Willow Run Foods lands new contract, adds employees

KIRKWOOD — A new $1.3 million contract with one of the nation’s top burger chains is already boosting employment at Willow Run Foods, Inc. and should push sales toward the half-billion-dollar mark this year.

“We’ve been hiring left and right,” says Larry Amico, vice president of sales and marketing at Willow Run. So far, the Kirkwood–based company has hired 40 new people and expects to have a total of 75 new employees before it is done hiring, he says. The business currently employs 325.

And all of those new Willow Run employees are to support the new, five-year contract with Wendy’s, the third biggest burger chain and fourth largest fast-food company in America according to QSRmagazine. 

Under the contract, Willow Run will supply nearly 500 Wendy’s restaurants across the Northeast from Maine to New Jersey. “We’ll supply them all their food, paper, and cleaning products,” Amico says. All the new stores should be online with Willow Run by early October, he says.

Willow Run has a long-established relationship with a number of Wendy’s restaurants, Amico says. “We’ve actually been doing business with Wendy’s for about 31 years,” he says. However, being named Wendy’s distributor of the year for 2011 certainly paved the way for this new contract and the expanded business with the quick-service restaurant chain.

Willow Run is hiring for positions in just about every department, Amico says, including truck drivers, warehouse workers, office staff, and customer-service representatives. While some jobs start just a bit above minimum wage, several of the positions, especially truck drivers, are good-paying jobs, he notes.

Willow Run is also an employee-owned company. “The beauty of that is that most of our employees … they’re going to become long-term employees,” Amico says. 

Headquartered at 1006 U.S. Route 11 in Kirkwood, Willow Run Foods (www.willowrunfoods.com) got its start in 1949 as an egg-delivery business. The business eventually grew and began to supply restaurants, bakeries, schools, and convenience stores. Willow Run currently serves businesses in 14 states throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The company began supplying Wendy’s in 1981.

Today, Willow Run also supplies Arby’s, Sonic, Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits, and Quizno’s. 

The company’s president and CEO is Terry Wood.         

Contact DeLore at tdelore@tgbbj.com