Wholesale Grocery

 On AIR1 I had a grocery wholesaler, Weisman Wholesale Grocery Warehouse*. What I want to do is to find some regional businesses, from the late 1940 and early 1950’s who were doing business in the Grocery Wholesale trade. I’ve been going to Wikipedia, and honestly the results are good, but there is A LOT of information out there, so wading through it will take time. One can always fall back on the old reliable names, A&P comes to mind. But I need to be careful. I started to get interested in Winn-Dixie, but found out that that name came into existence in 1966. See, a lot of information.

In going through some of the information I’m finding there are a lot of regional warehouse companies serving local groceries and small chains. This leads me to believe I’m fairly safe going with Freelanced names for some businesses. The logical progression would be that these smaller business either eventually failed or got purchased and folded into larger National businesses. Very Darwinian.

For playability these wholesalers need to have dry goods AND cold storage structures. There’s not a lot you can do with this; pick-up and set-out.

The structures themselves can be as varied as a business in existence. A friend, Mike Heine**, has a very nice Grocery Wholesaler that is a mix of at least three major kits, giving it the look of a business that has grown and expanded over time

These facilities are vital to larger communities. I modeled two on AIR1 and plan at least two on AIR2.




*A lot of industries on AIR1 got their names from good friends. Jerry Weisman, Jon Cure, Fred Eisenthal, Al Daumann, Paul Frantz: Cure Bros. Sand and Gravel; Eisenthal Machine Tools; A.G. Daumann and Sons Lumber; P.E.Frantz Milling. With regards to the name “Weisman”, on AIR1 I named a grocery wholesaler “Weisman” after Jerry. On AIR2 I am “promoting” Jerry. He is going to give his name to  a freight consolidator/freight house, since he was actually in this business in the 1970’s.

** Mike has one of the most entertaining layouts I know of in the LA area. He models a portion of the Milwaukee Road industrial branch in Chicago, and it’s is a blast to work.

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