[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9084-9085]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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       CONGRATULATING B. GREEN & COMPANY ON ITS 100TH ANNIVERSARY

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I wish to take this opportunity to 
recognize a special Baltimore company--B. Green & Company--on its 100th 
anniversary, which will be celebrated this Saturday, June 13. Benjamin 
Green founded this great Baltimore company one century ago. He was an 
immigrant from Lithuania who worked as a street peddler before starting 
a wholesale grocery business in 1915 in a rowhouse located at 828 West 
Baltimore Street. He made deliveries to Baltimore-area grocery stores 
by horse-drawn carts and later by ``tin lizzy'' type trucks.
  One hundred years ago, warehouses were multistoried buildings, 
record-keeping, inventories, and billing were done by hand, and most 
items--even commodities like butter--were sold in bulk. Today, we have 
sprawling one-story warehouses accessible by tractor-trailer trucks. 
``Just in time'' inventories are tracked by barcode. Computer software 
has automated much of the book-keeping and billing. And products of all 
types are sold in more convenient packages.
  B. Green & Company was--and remains--a family business. All of 
Benjamin Green's children--his sons Sam and Bernie and his daughters 
Rose, Anna, Sarah, and Dora ``Duckye'' and their spouses joined in 
supporting the business, learning it from the ground up. As they 
developed their own areas of expertise, the size and nature and status 
of the company grew. The third generation of the family joined their 
parents in the business in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the remaining 
family members in the business are chief executive officer Benjamin 
``Benjy'' Green and his cousins Ben Sigman, chairman emeritus; and 
Bernice Sigman, a retired physician and board member.
  For a company to survive and prosper for 100 years, it needs to 
evolve and change with the times. During World War II, the company 
started supplying food to military bases and grew into the largest 
military commissary supplier on the east coast. In 1948, B. Green & 
Company was one of the first food wholesalers to use data processing 
equipment. Also, that year, the company relocated to the first single-
story warehouse in the area at 2200 Winchester Street. A catastrophic 
fire destroyed the entire warehouse and most of the corporate offices 
in 1959, but the company had such strong relations with its suppliers 
and customers that it was able to resume delivering groceries from a 
rented warehouse within a few days.
  In 1966, B. Green & Company purchased Capital Wholesale Grocery 
Company, which allowed it to add the Cash & Carry business. The 
corporate offices were moved to 400 West Conway Street where the Cash & 
Carry was located. In 1968, the company acquired Colonial Foods 
Distributing Company to add gourmet and specialty foods and snack items 
to the main grocery products, and to add some national chains as 
customers. In 1972, the company acquired property at 3601 Washington 
Boulevard from Westinghouse to expand warehousing capacity, and the 
corporate offices relocated there in 1975. Three years later, the 
company acquired Southern Beef Company to expand its line of meat 
products.
  B. Green & Company eventually became the largest grocery wholesaler 
on the east coast. In 1979, it helped pioneer warehouse-style, low-
price, no-frills supermarkets by opening the York Warehouse Food 
Market. In 1983, using state-of-the-art technology, it became one of 
the first wholesalers to use a mechanized warehouse system. In 1989, 
the Maryland Stadium Authority, by the ``right of eminent domain'', 
condemned the 400 West Conway location to build Oriole Park at Camden 
Yards. Cash & Carry moved to its current location at 1300 South Monroe 
Street.

[[Page 9085]]

  By 1991, with annual sales of $675 million, B. Green & Company ranked 
263d on Forbes magazine's list of the Nation's largest private 
companies. But the company continued to evolve, shifting its focus from 
wholesaling to retailing. In 1992, it sold its military distribution 
business to Nash Finch, a Minnesota-based wholesale grocery 
distributer. In 1993, it sold its civilian distribution business to 
Richfood of Richmond, VA.
  Today, B. Green & Company runs several different food operations. It 
still distributes groceries to food retailers who are too small for the 
big wholesalers. It continues to run Cash & Carry from the warehouse at 
1300 South Monroe Street and another one located at 2401 Belair Road. 
Cash & Carry is a members-only warehouse where many corner grocers in 
the area can shop for goods. And it operates two ``everyday-low-price'' 
Food Depot stores in Baltimore at the Belair Road site, which opened in 
1996, and at 2495 Frederick Avenue, which opened in 2008. These stores 
ushered in a new generation of urban full-service supermarkets, 
featuring a fresh seafood and fish department, one of the largest and 
most diversified produce departments in Baltimore City, a full-service 
deli and bakery, and a meat department with a great variety of products 
and cuts of meat. The stores succeed as independent grocers by 
customizing their products and services to the neighborhoods they 
serve. Store managers and associates are encouraged to suggest products 
and merchandising strategies. In 2011, the company expanded into Howard 
County with a new format, the Green Valley Marketplace at 7280 
Montgomery Road in Elkridge, MD. Green Valley Marketplace is a new 
suburban supermarket.
  I am proud that B. Green & Company launched a campaign to expand 
healthy food choices in the city's poorest neighborhoods in a 
partnership with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 
that encourages shoppers to buy healthier items and fewer highly 
processed foods. Many Food Depot customers rely on the Supplemental 
Nutrition Assistance Program. The stores have licensed dieticians 
onsite who teach customers how to shop for and prepare healthy meals on 
a budget.
  Today, B. Green & Company employs nearly 500 associates, who are 
considered extended family. Benjy Green knows most of them by name and 
can recount their backgrounds. The company thrives 100 years after its 
creation because, as Benjy put it, ``we know the neighborhood we serve 
better than the other guy''. It thrives because it treats its employees 
and its customers with respect. It thrives because it fulfills a vital 
function in communities across Baltimore and the surrounding area. I 
would ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating B. Green & Company 
on its 100th anniversary and sending best wishes for the next 100 
years.

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