Article
THE M. BUONO BEEF CO. IS STILL MAKING
THE CUT AFTER NEARLY 60 YEARS
SELLING TO RESTAURANTS AND COUNTRY CLUBS, IT SURVIVES AS ONE
OF THE LAST FAMILY-OWNED MEAT WHOLESALERS IN PHILADELPHIA
By Peter Binzen
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Monday, July 26, 1999
From its northern extremity at the Montgomery County line, Philadelphia's
Third Street runs more than 10 miles south through the heart of the
city to an abrupt end against the stanchions supporting I-95.
The last building on this long street houses one of the small anonymous
firms in the Food Distribution Center, a food-suppliers wholesale
warehouse. Here, Michael Buono Jr., 55, runs M. Buono Beef Co., the
business founded by his father nearly 60 years ago. He's a rare survivor
among family-owned meat wholesalers in Philadelphia. A score or more
such companies have disappeared in the last 20 years.
The casualty list includes Ferdinand W. Nofer & Sons, Stein-Henry
Meats, Twin Brothers, and Kansas City Beef.
When one of the largest, Cross Brothers, shut down in 1980, the region
lost its last major abattoir. Another important company, Wilson Beef,
had 90 employees and $16 million in annual sales in 1988, when it
was sold to the Morton Snyder Beef Co. in Willow Grove. Two years
later, Wilson Beef folded, the victim of an economic recession and
soaring interest rates. "I made the right move at the wrong time,"
Morton Snyder said of his ill-fated acquisition.
Japanese interests purchased 50 percent of a third well-known business,
Colonial Beef, in 1987. Marudai Food Co. Ltd. later increased its
ownership to 73 percent. Jack O'Donnell, national sales manager for
Colonial Beef, said the company employs 67 people at its operations
at 3333 S. Third St., sells its products nationally, and exports to
East Asia.
"People in this industry are a breed all to themselves,"
said Shawn Padgett, vice president of sales and marketing for the
George L. Wells Meat Co., at 982 N. Delaware Ave. "Margins are
very close and competition is intense. If you're still standing, you've
got to be good at what you do. It's a science. And Wells knows how
to play this game."
Wells, founded in 1908, was acquired in 1970 by James Carboy, who
heads it today. With 92 employees, it sells primarily to restaurants
in four states and to country clubs.
Attilio Esposito Inc., which dates from 1911, has a retail store in
the Italian Market at 1001 S. Ninth St. and wholesale operations.
Its 80-person workforce is headed by Louis J. Esposito, son of the
founder, and his two sons, Louis A. and Robert.
Among locally owned companies, Wells, Esposito, Buono, and a few other
outfits are nearly all that is left of the wholesale meat industry
in Philadelphia.
Whereas Wells and Esposito divide management responsibilities among
a number of executives, M. Buono Beef Co., with 13 employees and upwards
of $6.5 million in annual gross revenues, is essentially a one-man
gang.
The one man is Mike Buono, a high-energy owner-operator for whom the
term "hands-on management" must have been coined.
If you phone Buono Beef, your call will probably be answered on the
first or second ring, and the answerer will probably be Mike Buono.
He has a secretary but takes most calls himself. "People think
this is terrific, getting the owner on the phone," he said. "I'm
on the phone every two seconds. I do all the buying, all the pricing,
95 percent of the selling."
Some of his competitors went out of business because their customers
were too late with their payments. Buono, who prides himself on running
a "tight ship," doesn't put up with such delinquencies.
"I'm on top of my receivables," he said. "I review
them every week. I tell my girls, 'Call this guy. He's too late.'
I don't give credit. This is a very small markup business - 8 or 10
percent. That's why cash flow is so important."
Buono, who played varsity football for Villanova in the 1960s, compares
running his business with a gridiron scrimmage. "It's like putting
on a helmet every day," he said. "It's a tough, tough life.
The product is perishable and the market is volatile. That's why this
business is so tough. You have to think on your feet."
Football players take time out now and then; Mike Buono doesn't. He
rises at 5 a.m. and goes to bed at midnight. If a friend invites him
for lunch, his stock reply is: "Who does lunch?" For him,
it's work, work, work, without respite.
But he does allow himself one indulgence: golf. He took up the game
a decade ago, now has a handicap of 16, and belongs to the Edgmont
Country Club in Delaware County. But that's business, too, because
country club orders account for 30 percent of his revenues, and Edgmont
is one of his customers.
Buono acknowledges that after work almost every day, he hits golf
balls for half an hour at Edgmont before heading home for dinner,
then a 15-minute nap, and work until 12. He plays there on weekends,
too.
One of his golfing pals is Ed Dougherty, Edgmont's touring pro who
collected $185,000 for a second-place finish in the U.S. Senior Open
this month. Dougherty said they met when Buono was just a beginner
on the links; now they play "skins" games together, where
players compete for holes, rather than an overall score.
Buono apparently applies himself to golf with the same ferocious intensity
that he gives to his business. "This guy puts so much effort
into it," Dougherty said. "He's a hard, hard worker. He
hits more balls than Gary Player."
When Dougherty's comment was relayed to him, Buono laughed. He said
he once hit so many balls on the driving range that he threw his shoulder
out - but still wouldn't quit.
He didn't go to business school to learn what it takes to succeed.
"It doesn't take brains," he said. "It takes hard work.
There are no shortcuts."
His father, who at 89 is living in retirement in Ocean City, taught
him the importance of quality and service. "That plus hard work,"
the son said. "Here's a man who never went beyond seventh grade
in school. I attribute those lessons to him."
When Buono graduated from Villanova in 1965 with a degree in accounting,
he considered a career in that field. After service in the Marine
Corps, he scheduled a meeting with the Philadelphia office of Price
Waterhouse, the big accounting firm. While awaiting his job interview,
he rode in the green panel truck from which his father sold meat to
butcher shops.
He soon saw the possibility of expanding the business by selling to
restaurants. "I carried a clean shirt and tie in the truck,"
he said. "After making deliveries to the butcher shops, I'd put
on the shirt and tie and sell restaurants."
In this way, he gained several accounts and gave up the idea of becoming
an accountant. And little by little, M. Buono Beef Co. got bigger.
Buono first persuaded his father to rent space in a shop to store
their meat and to buy a second truck, one for each to drive. About
1972, they bought a small shop with one room and a cooler near Seventh
and Bigler Streets in South Philadelphia. The price was $10,500.
"I said, 'Dad, how come after all these years you listened to
me?' " Buono recalled. "He said, 'Well, you went to college,
didn't you?' "
The neighborhood was residential and the neighbors were not happy
with big trailers making deliveries of meat down their narrow street.
Mike Buono found a way to placate them. "I gave them meat,"
he said. That stopped the protests.
As the business expanded, the Buonos looked for more space. In 1983,
they paid $75,000 for their current facility on 2 acres at the foot
of Third Street. There's plenty of room for cutting the meat and preparing
it for delivery to country clubs and restaurants, but the president's
office is a cubbyhole. His desk looks like World War II surplus. Ditto
for the only table in the room. There's an ancient filing cabinet,
a copier, an air-conditioner, and space for storing boxes.
But Buono is rarely in his office. He says he spends most of his time
in the "cutting area," overseeing "quality control"
as his staff cuts strip steaks, fillets and ribs. Most of his meat
comes in refrigerated trucks from Iowa Beef Processors Inc., which
he considers the best in the world. "I get the cream pick because
I pay so good," he said.
He closely watches prices for beef, which change weekly. Price wars
killed off some of his competitors, but Buono stayed on the sidelines.
"You can't get into them," he said of the battles over pricing.
"If I'm five cents [per pound] higher, that doesn't concern me.
Reliability of product is the key. My thing is quality and service."
If he thinks beef prices are about to fall, Buono will advise a customer
not to buy at the higher price. He knows that although he may have
lost an order he has gained the confidence of his customer.
One such customer, Bob Johanson, head chef at the Aronimink Golf Club
in Newtown Square, said that Buono tells him when to buy and when
not to buy. "He's an old-timer, a throwback," Johanson said.
Johanson, who also buys from Wells, said of Buono: "He does what
he does as well as anybody. He'll do anything to help you."
Aronimink's chef would get no argument from another Buono customer,
Edward J. Williamson, co-owner with his four brothers of Williamson
restaurants in the old GSB Building on City Avenue and in Exton and
Horsham, as well as of J & J Catering. "When the chips are
down, he's the best there is," Williamson said of Mike Buono.
"He's gruff, he's rough, but I can't beat him for quality and
service. He's never, ever let me down."
Back at M. Buono Beef Co. at the southern tip of Third Street, Carmen
Didonato, the plant manager, agrees that his boss can be gruff and
rough. "Mike's style is unique," he said. "He's on
top of everything. He keeps us all steppin'. We shout at each other.
But he's louder than I am."
Copyright 1999 PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS
INC.
May not be reprinted without permission.
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