First Posted: 3/16/2015
LIMA — The SpartanNash Lima Distribution Center is characterized by employee dedication.
“There is a tremendous amount of experience and tenure over at that facility,” said Greg Ratliff, distribution director at SpartanNash in Lima, when he spoke at the Rotary Club of Lima meeting on Monday.
Ratliff spoke at Rotary as a part of the club’s “What’s for Dinner” series on the local food economy and explained about what the company does and “who it is.”
The Lima Distribution Center, located at 1100 Prosperity Road, is one of 12 owned by the food distribution company around the country, Ratliff said.
The facility employs forklift operators, selectors, loaders, sanitation workers, clerical staff, maintenance staff, receivers and drivers.
The local facility has been in Lima for a long time, he said, which can be seen through the length of many of its approximately 260 employees’ careers.
Ratliff recalls speaking with a man who was planning to retire after 34 years of service.
“I started hearing story after story after story like that,” he said.
SpartanNash became a company after Spartan Stores and Nash Finch merged in late 2013, and both companies “grew up as companies that embraced local relationships, provided strong service to their customers, and had long-term employees,” Ratliff said.
As the company “grew up,” its local footprint also grew. Several expansions through the years, from 1953 to the latest one in 2010, have made the Lima facility measure about 497,000 square feet today.
In Lima, the company distributes grocery, meat, dairy and frozen items and delivers to 600 independent locations primarily in Ohio and Michigan, Ratliff said. Each year, Lima drivers put in 5.5 million miles, he said.
“There’s a very broad reach for the facility here,” he said.
SpartanNash was the third in the “What’s for Dinner” series, said Rotary program chair Cindy Wood.
The series started after members realized how much industry in the region is driven by food supply, Wood said.
Wood said she hopes the series helps Rotary members “understand the business and its impact on the community” as well as “understand the community in which we live in and its richness.”
