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, with annual sales climbing to more than $157 million.
Pepin Distributing has been honored as one of the nation's top distributors of Anheuser-Busch products and commands nearly 70 percent of the beer market in Hillsborough and Pasco counties.
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 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. The company has promoted recycling efforts that have resulted in major contributions to the MacDonald Training Center for the handicapped and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The list includes colleges and Universities, health care institutions, social service agencies, civic organizations, arts and cultural groups, business to business associations and economic development agencies.
Tom 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 Convention and Visitors Bureau, Take Stock in Children, The University of Tampa, Boys and Girls Club, Hillsborough Education Foundation, Hilsborough Anti-Drug and Alcohol Coalition, Tampa Alcohol Coalition, DACCO, Outback Pro-Am, just to name a few.
The Pepin family has provided support in numerous ways by making family contributions to community instituions such as The Pepin Heart Hospital at UCH which is the Southeast's only all digital heart hospital, Pepin Stadium at the Univeristy of Tampa, The Pepin Academy which is a school for teenagers with learning disabilities, The Florida Aquarium, and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
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 Foundatoin." It has been the Guiding principal that has lead to company to becomming a leader in the beverage business and a leader in the community. The list of philanthropic efforts hat 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 1960, he was heading an Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Gainesville, where his company held 98 percent of the draught beer market in its territory.
Art's success attracted the attention of brewery magnate August Busch Jr., and the two quickly became friends. In 1967, Busch rewarded Art for his hard work by awarding him the distributorship in the Tampa Bay area.
In 1986, Art made history by becoming the world's oldest heart transplant recipient at 65. "Art Pepin didn't get a second life because of the heart," Tom Pepin said, "the heart got a second life because of Art Pepin."
The new heart enabled Art to carry on his life's work for another 14 years, giving and caring and making friends all along the way. When Art passed away in June 2000, Monsignor Laurence Higgins told well-wishers that even in the days leading up to his death, Art "thought not of himself but of the other person."
"I pray to God I can be like that," Higgins added. "It tells me a lot about his character."
Tom Pepin: Building on a father's dream
Like his Dad, Tom attended Middlebury College. Soon after graduation in 1975, he came home to launch his career at Pepin Distributing. He rose quickly through the ranks, first working as a sales representative and later as an assistant sales manager.
By 1982, Art decided that Tom was ready to make the big jump and transferred leadership of the company to his son. Tom became president of Pepin Distributing and four years later assumed the positions of Chairman of the Board and CEO.
Tom has presided over an era of considerable growth at Pepin Distributing. When the company first arrived in Tampa, it sold 1.5 million cases of beer and 33,000 half barrels of draught in a year. Two decades later, annual sales exceed 10 million cases and 150,000 half barrels. The company, which now employs about 275 people, recently sold 62,000 cases of beer in a single day - a good year's sales when Art first started.
Pepin Distributing Company is located at a sprawling complex in East Tampa that includes more than 112,500 square feet of climate-controlled warehouse space. The complex has a complete maintenance facility for company vehicles, a fully equipped fitness center and a personal enrichment library for employees. "It's a basic investment in their well-being," Tom said. The cornerstone of the facility is the 25.000 square foot TPepin's Hospitality Centre that accomodates up to 600 people for a seated dinner.
The focal point of the Pepin headquarters is a comfortable, cypress-paneled meeting room adorned with Pepin family hunting and fishing trophies. The room is available for community functions and provides guests with a place to relax. As Art once noted, "The name of the game is hospitality."
A Changing Business
Under Tom Pepin's leadership, a new style of customer service has emerged, focusing on helping retailers manage their entire beverage inventory.
"We have evolved our company from a delivery/service organization into a sales/marketing and information-based service company," Tom said. "We intend to continue to maximize our use of all available technologies, systems and products to further differentiate ourselves from the competition."
The variety of products offered by the company is constantly changing, with light, dry, nonalcoholic, ice brews and malternative giving customers more choices than ever. In addition, Pepin now distributes the products of Modelo brewery (which includes the Corona family), Red Hook Brewery Brands, and the Kirin family to name a few. Pepin Dsitributing has recently partnered with US Baverage, Hook and Ladder, Warstiener, and the Florida Brewing Company to begin distributing over 30 new import, craft, and specialty brews. In all Pepin carries more than 170 brands, up from three when the company started.
In 2002 Pepin Distributing Company purchased the Persimmon Hill property at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and 56th Street in unincorporated Hillsborough County. The site encompasses 36 _ acres and the new facility will be 241,000 square feet. The new complex will be able will be able to house 20 million cases of beer. In a press conference Tom Pepin said Pepin Distributing Company accounts for 70% of the Hillsborough and Pasco County beer market and with the continuing population growth its time for us to expand.
SIGNIFICANT PEPIN MILESTONES
1967
- Art Pepin is awarded the Tampa Marketplace.
1978
- Anheuser-Busch introduces Michelob Light Beer.
1979
- Pepin Distributing Company wins Dimensions of Excellence Bronze Award.
1980
- Pepin Distributing Company opens new 84,000 square foot warehouse on 54th Street.
1981
- Tom Pepin becomes President and CEO and Art Pepin becomes Chairman of the Board.
- Pepin Distributing Company is awarded Dimension of Excellence Silver Award.
1982
- Budweiser Light and Eagle Snacks are introduced by Anheuser-Busch.
- Pepin Distributing Company employs 141 employees.
1983
- Pepin Distributing Company wins Gold Dimensions of Excellence Award.
- Teamsters petition for unionization but was defeated.
1985
- Pepin Distributing Company wins Ambassador Dimensions of Excellence award and maintains this stature throughout the life of the program.
1986
- Art Pepin becomes the world's oldest heart transplant recipient.
- Pepin Distributing Company employs 164 employees.
1987
- Sales top 5 million cases.
1990
- Pepin Distributing Company is named Anheuser-Busch Wholesaler of the Year.
1994
- Pepin Distributing Company sales surpass 6 million cases.
1995
- Anheuser-Busch discontinues the Eagle Snacks division.
1996
- Pepin Distributing Company acquires Ybor Gold Brewery Brands.
1999
- Tom Pepin names Bob Ammon, Glenn Arose, Randy Garcia, Bill Gieseking and Jim Hackman as directors.
- Sales exceed 7 million cases.
- Pepin Distributing Company relinquishes the distribution rights of Ybor Gold Brewery Brands.
2001
- Pepin Distributing Company acquires distribution rights to the Modelo Brewery products, which includes Corona Extra and Corona Light.
- Case sales top 8 million cases.
- Anheuser-Busch introduces Bacardi Silver.
2002
- Anheuser-Busch introduces Michelob Ultra.
- Pepin Distributing Company ranks 32 among Tampa Bays Top 100 Companies as reported by the Business Journal of Tampa Bay.
- Wayne Metziere is named a director.
- The company announces plans to relocate and build a new 241,000 square foot facility.
- Pepin Distributing Company employs 251 employees.
2003
- Anheuser-Busch introduces Bacardi Silver.
2004
- Pepin Distributing Company employs 275 people.
- Construction begins on the Pepin Heart Hospital at UCH.
- Budweiser Select is introduced (November).
- Responsibility Matters campaign is launched.
- Anheuser-Busch introduces Bacardi Silver Limon and Low Carb Black Cherry.
2005
- Pepin Distributing Company moves into its new facility on 50th St. and MLK Blvd.
- Pepin Heart Hospital opens.
- Michelob ULTRA Amber is introduced (February).
- Construction begins on TPepin's Hospitality Centre.
- Pepin Distributing hits 10 million case mark at the end of the year.
2006
- Anheuser-Busch becomes the importer of Grolsch and Tiger beers.
- Anheuser-Busch begins to distriute its first ever liquor beverage, Jekyll and Hyde
2007
- Anheuser-Busch partners with InBev.
- Budweiser and Bud Light Clamato Chelada are introduced.
- Pepin Distributing Company partners with Gasparilla to be the official sponsor for the next 3 years.
- TPepin's Hospitality Centre opens (April).
- Tom Pepin names Randy Garcia Vice President.
- Total number of brands distributed by Pepin Distributing Company grows to 73 brands.
- Anheuser-Busch introduces Land Shark for the Florida market.
- Anheuser-Busch's Jacksonville Brewery introduces Tarpon Spoon specially for the state of Florida.