Sam Parr  ⚪️

Founded in 1918, C&S started as a small grocery distribution center. Basically - they bought lots of foodstuffs and sold them to grocers. Simple! But the story gets interesting when Rick Cohen, the founder's grandson, stepped in.

"We're the biggest company no one has ever heard of," company spokesman said of C&S. And "I'm not sure I've met anyone as smart, analytic and quantitatively driven as Rick. Many CEOs have a need to prove they're the smartest guy in the room. Rick is not like that."

Here's the secret: - Grocery wholesaling is a small-margin business. ~5% margins - That means Rick had to focus on efficiency - <2% of +$30 billion worth of orders a year have errors. This is unheard of and their secret sauce. Meaning, a store gets exactly what they ordered

To make that happen, C&S warehouse teams are small and self-managed. This reduces # of supervisors because lineworkers know what to do. To do this, he incentivized his workers well. Workers get bonuses if no errors and pay is docked if there are too many wrong orders.

Like Amazon and AWS, Cohen bought Symbotic to use for C&S, but he's also selling it to other grocers. “Taking waste out is fascinating to me,” Cohen said. “I walk through a warehouse, and everyone sees what’s happening, and I see what’s not happening.”