That reality is at the center of Jason Tillis’ strategy as he leads the combined forces of Imperial Dade and BradyPLUS into a new chapter as Imperial Brady, following the completion of the companies’ merger in March. The transaction has brought together two major North American distributors of foodservice, janitorial and sanitation, and industrial packaging products, creating a platform with increased geographic reach, product depth and operational scale.
For the Jersey City, NJ-based CEO, however, the opportunity is not simply about becoming bigger. “When you think about Legacy Imperial and all the great businesses that combined to form it, and then Legacy Brady and all the great parts of the industry that were there, bringing those organizations together creates a rare opportunity,” Tillis said. “It’s one plus one equals three, but at a very large scale. We’ve seen one plus one equal three or four many times. To be able to do it at this scale is unique.”
The challenge now is combining the advantages of that scale with the personal relationships that have traditionally driven foodservice distribution. “The big don’t eat the small. The fast eat the slow,” Tillis added. “We want to be big and fast now, because we have the opportunity to be both.”
That means standardizing operations where standardization makes sense while protecting the local customer relationships that often differentiate one distributor from another. “If we’re selling to a hypothetical Fred’s Deli in New York City, the last thing we want to do is disrupt the relationship you have with your salesperson or your customer service person,” Tillis explained. “Our thought is: what does the customer want without in many cases necessarily even seeing it. Our goal becomes optimize the operation so we have the best fill rate possible, the fewest errors and the best routes. We want operational excellence and standardization with the focus remaining on that salesperson-customer relationship that should remain local and unique.”
Imperial Brady’s structure is designed to reinforce that local accountability. Individual business units have leaders responsible for their local P&L, with regional leadership layered above them. Tillis believes that gives managers the ability to make day-to-day decisions close to the customer while remaining accountable for the results.
Scale, though, creates its own complexity.
“We do $10 billion, $800 at a time,” Tillis noted. “None of this is particularly complicated by itself. The complexity comes from the volume. You can be integrating a facility or consolidating an operation, but you still can’t be late with the delivery to Fred’s Deli. We have to provide an incredible level of customer service while driving all these initiatives internally to make the business better.”
Foodservice remains especially important to Tillis personally. He spent his first four years in the business focused entirely on the sector, and he sees its sense of urgency as part of the operating philosophy Imperial Brady can carry into other markets.
For operators wrestling with labor costs, margin pressure and operational complexity, Tillis believes the distributor’s opportunity extends beyond simply delivering cases.
“Supplies plus support—the support is where the magic happens,” he said. “It might be portion control, making sure you’re using packaging that optimizes presentation without waste, or helping select the right container for delivery so food stays as crispy as possible. It can also be helping an operator create the cleanest environment possible. Our team’s job is to understand how best to support those different customers.”
The combined platform also creates greater resources for technology. Tillis said Imperial Dade had integrated roughly 80 percent of its 98 acquisitions onto a core ERP platform before the merger, including warehouse management, supply-chain and transportation systems. As with most business sectors, AI is increasingly part of the conversation. “We’re probably having three to five AI meetings a week,” Tillis said. “But we don’t want to do AI for AI’s sake. We want to understand how these tools can improve the way customers interact with us and how we can give customers better information. Our scale allows us to make investments in technology, and those investments allow us to do a better job serving our customers.”
At the operator level, that technology strategy is focused less on telling restaurants how to automate their kitchens and more on removing friction between customer and distributor. “If you want to put robots into an operation and you need a certain type of bowl that the robot can handle, we can sell you the bowl,” Tillis added. “Our role in technology is really about information—creating the most seamless digital platform possible, sharing information in real time and reducing friction in the process.”
Scale is also reshaping Imperial Brady’s relationships with manufacturers. Tillis pointed to a network that includes approximately 2,000 sellers, 3,000 trucks and 20 million square feet of warehouse space—an infrastructure that gives suppliers a significant route to market. “Supplier relationships are foundational to this business,” Tillis outlined. “We can’t do a good job for our customers without great manufacturing partners. We’re constantly sharing ideas about what the market is looking for and what solutions customers need. Those conversations have produced some great outcomes.”
Looking forward, Tillis said the priority is not chasing every new opportunity simply because the combined company has the resources to do so.
For restaurant and foodservice operators, that may ultimately be the clearest measure of Imperial Brady’s merger strategy: using technology, infrastructure, and national scale behind the scenes to maximize the customer experience, while ensuring customers continue to feel that someone knows their business, answers the phone, and gets the truck there on time.
For additional information about Imperial Brady, its foodservice products, equipment and maintenance programs, and customer support capabilities, visit www.imperialbrady.com.
