Merchants Distributors, LLC
Chris Van Parys is an experienced executive in the retail and supermarket industry, currently serving as the Vice President of Retail Services at Merchants Distributors, LLC since November 2023. Prior to this role, Chris held the position of President at W. Lee Flowers & Co from January 2021 to November 2023. Chris's extensive background includes significant leadership roles at Lowes Foods, where responsibilities included Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations, Senior Vice President of Sales & Merchandising, and Vice President of Merchandising, spanning from November 2012 to January 2021. Chris also served as Vice President of Perishable Operations at Farm Fresh Supermarkets and Vice President of Produce at SUPERVALU from January 1998 to September 2010, contributing to a robust career marked by a strong focus on sales, operations, and merchandising within the grocery sector.
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Merchants Distributors, LLC
Merchants Distributors (MDI) is a privately-owned wholesale grocery store distributor headquartered in Hickory, NC. MDI supplies over 600 retail food stores with food and non-food items in NC, SC, GA, TN, VA, AL, WV, OH, FL, PA, MD, and KY. MDI celebrated its 85th anniversary on September 21, 2016. MDI's 85 year history is an interesting story of sacrifice, growth and success. It began as a small family business in the small town of Hickory, North Carolina, and as one local newspaper described it, "With little more than a bag of peanuts, an apple, and a stick of candy." What Lebanese immigrant Moses George and his sons purchased in 1931 for $17,000 has since grown to become a multimillion-dollar wholesale grocery company. Merchants Distributors is a great American success story but it is a company that has never forgotten its roots. Its success is based on: - Its values, its facilities, its variety, its Advertising programs, its cost of goods, and its innovations - The one thing that distinguishes MDI as superior to other distribution companies - leadership. MDI's owners have created a leadership style that supports the organization as one family working together for one common goal and a culture in its people that is impossible to duplicate.