Customer satisfaction key to Northern Sales' success: familiar in Southeast, this company has now expanded to other areas.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: ABM's top 49ers: business blockbusters - Northern Sales Company of Alaska Inc. is in its 44th year of operation - Company Profile

2004 Top 49er Ranking: 42

Position Last Year: 41

2003 Revenues: $34.89 million

Number of employees: 83

When you go to the grocery store, you probably don't think much about how the products that you buy get there. In Southeast Alaska, a variety of consumables, including Fritos, Pepsi, Oroweat Bread, and cigarette and tobacco products reach the shelves through the efforts of Northern Sales Company of Alaska Inc. Now in its 44th year, the company, which also has an office in Kodiak and a distribution warehouse in Kent, Wash., is entering the Anchorage market.

"We opened an office in Anchorage in April, primarily to service one account--the Great Alaska Tobacco Co., or GATC," explained Michael J. Elerding, president. "We're now looking at expanding into other areas, and expect to double our Anchorage staff sometime in the first two years."

EXPANDING PRODUCTS LINE

Northern Sales got its start in 1962 as a "rack jobber" in Juneau, before expanding into the cigarette and tobacco market. "We then became the exclusive distributor of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay products throughout Southeast," said Elerding, of the company that he and his wife, Michal Beth Elerding, bought in 1990. The couple originally bought the Sitka regional distribution center in 1983.

Northern Sales now has offices in Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, Kodiak, Anchorage and Kent, Wash., and serves more than 500 Alaska customers as a DSD, or direct store distributor. According to Elerding, every retail grocery store in Southeast, including Fred Meyer, Wal-Mart and Costco, uses Northern Sales' services. The company also has a division that supplies businesses with janitorial supplies, and provides fish boxes for fishing lodges and other customers.

"Our real forte is in providing regional grocery stores with the Pepsi Cola, Frito-Lay and Oroweat bread lines," said Elerding of the company, which also carries Wonder Bread, cigarettes, tobacco and confections. "We take the order, transmit it to our local distribution center, pull the product, truck it to the store, and stock it on the shelves. And we do the whole thing again the next day.

"We are also very good at logistics--one of the big challenges that we face in Alaska is making sure that products get to where they need to be in a timely manner," he added. "Most products we carry start in Kent, and then get routed to one of our regional distribution centers. So if a customer in Petersburg wants something, we can make sure that he gets it...