Thanks to a round of golf, Hunt Brothers Pizza is expanding to western New York.
Matthew Mies, dealer sales manager with Buffalo, New York-based fuel dealer NOCO Dealer LLC, told CSP he hit the links about 18 months ago with Hunt Brothers Pizza’s Andy Kelly when the two were at a conference.
Kelly, whose great uncle Don Hunt was one of the founder brothers of the company, is chief operating officer of TBHC Delivers, the largest distributor of Hunt Brothers Pizza.
Mies said that NOCO for five years had been searching for a foodservice option to add to its convenience-store sites to give dealers another revenue source to boost sales.
“Andy told me they were always interested in exploring new markets, and they had never been up here in New York, and I described to him our foodservice need,” he said.
One thing led to another, with Hunt Brothers coming to NOCO and NOCO traveling to Hunt Brothers home base of Nashville.
“They investigated the area a little bit, and they realized this would be a great opportunity for them to get into the dealer market and privately owned stations,” Mies said.
The result is Hunt Brothers opening in eight locations that NOCO either owns or is the fuel supplier, said Mies, who added that NOCO has about 110 dealer locations.
Before the golf outing, Mies knew about Hunt Brothers by name only, having seen the company booth at industry shows.
The Hunt Brothers sites in New York, the latest on April 13, are:
- Brothers Mart, Niagara Falls
- C39 Cleve Hill Sunoco, Cheektowaga
- Canam Convenience Store, Springville
- Food Mart, Buffalo
- Innovative Convenience, Depew
- Niagara Express, Niagara Falls
- Pi Mart, Hamburg
- Snack Shack, Rochester
When Mies visited Hunt Brothers to see their operations, he tried the pizza for the first time.
“They did a lot of demonstrations for me, and I was really blown away by the quality of the products and by how much they are involved in the operations part of restocking, advertising, helping out the dealer to produce a great product, and to market the product,” he said.
Down the road, more c-stores NOCO either owns or supplies fuel to will launch Hunt Brothers Pizza, Mies said.
“Some retailers have been telling me how well things have been going,” he said. “We have a lot of multi-store owners wanting to put it in multiple locations, and a lot of our other dealers asking about it. I think it’s going to snowball, and the reason is the simplicity of how easy it is to produce the product. You’re not hiring any extra employees when doing this.”
Hunt Brothers Pizza, which recently arrived in Montana, said it selected this area because, “Simply put, we listen to our customers and they have been adamant that we could be a blessing to the New York market. As we continue to grow, we always aim to bring affordable and delicious hot food options to even the most rural communities and intend to continue that with this expansion.”
Dee Cleveland, director of marketing, told CSP that when Hunt Brothers Pizza is at industry shows, executives regularly hear from customers asking when the pizza brand will come to their community.
“Most of our new finds and new partnerships happen really organically, and what drives that oftentimes is that we do direct-store delivery,” Cleveland said. “We have account managers in the market every day, and so we’re continuing those relationships of our customers and those customers that surround those stores.
“We are in the market every day,” Cleveland added. “They’re seeing our pizza trucks in their neighborhoods.”
Since its founding in 1991 by brothers Don, Charlie, Jim and Lonnie Hunt, the family-run company has grown to more than 9,000 store locations across the country. It’s the country’s largest brand of made-to-order pizza in the convenience-store industry, it said.