Beginnings

When it comes to business leadership, customer service and community support, Pepin Distributing Company sets the industry standard. Since incorporating the company in 1963 in Gainesville, Florida, the Pepin family has built a beverage empire that has experienced constant growth, and has diversied their portfolio of products.

Business has been good to the Pepin family over the years and the company, in turn, has been good to the Tampa Bay community. The family provided seed money to help establish Pepin-Rood Stadium, the home of athletics at the University of Tampa. A $1 million donation led to the development of Pepin Heart & Vascular Institute at University Community Hospital in Tampa. More recently, the family helped establish the Pepin Academy, a Tampa school for teenagers with learning disabilities. Tom Pepin (Thomas Pepin) enhanced the Pepin Heart Facility and helped build the Pepin Heart Hospital, the most advanced Heart Hospital in the Southeast.

Pepin Distributing is a national leader in promoting alcohol abuse prevention programs through the many bars, restaurants and other establishments that it services. Pepin has developed meaningful partnerships with a vast array of organizations to help make the community a better and safer place to live. The list includes colleges and Universities, health care institutions, social service agencies, civic organizations, arts and cultural groups, business to business associations, law enforcement agencies and economic development agencies. You can view more by clicking on our "Community" page.

Tom Pepin (Thomas Pepin), President and CEO of Pepin Distributing Company, encourages employees at all levels within the organization to get involved and support the community by volunteering their time. Directors of the company serve on numerous boards of directors throughout the community including but not limited to: University Community Hospital, MDA, Make a Wish, Tampa Sports Commission, The Tampa Bay and Company, Take Stock in Children, The University of Tampa, Boys and Girls Club, Hillsborough Education Foundation, Hillsborough Anti-Drug and Alcohol Coalition, Tampa Alcohol Coalition, DACCO, Friends of Tampa Recreation, just to name a few.

Art Pepin, the company's late founder, and his son Tom Pepin, the company's president and CEO, built the company on a simple philosophy, "Making Friends is our Foundation." It has been the Guiding principal that has lead to company to becoming a leader in the beverage business and a leader in the community. The list of philanthropic eorts that the company is involved in is extensive.

Art began his beer distributing business in New England, making deliveries from the back of his station wagon. It was tough work but his business quickly grew. By 1963, he was heading an Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Gainesville, where his company held