Company News

Concord-based Coffee Distributor Wins Award in First Year with Darden Restaurants

Only one year into its relationship with Olive Garden restaurants, S&D Coffee, Inc. has received the chain’s most prestigious vendor award. Darden Restaurants, Inc., who owns and operates Olive Garden restaurants and other casual dining venues across the country, has presented S&D Coffee with a William B. Darden Distinguished Supplier Award. The award, named after Darden Restaurants founder Bill Darden, is handed out annually to the company’s most innovative suppliers.

S&D Coffee, based in Concord, N.C., was recognized for its development and national rollout of the new Caffe la Toscana program at Olive Garden. This program, which dictates coffee type, preparation, renewal schedule and product presentation within the restaurant, was launched in the fall of 2003. The chain-wide rollout included the S&D-led training of over 25,000 managers and servers in more than 520 Olive Garden restaurants across the United States.

During the process, S&D and Olive Garden officials also collaborated on the introduction of a new 64-ounce thermal stainless steel coffee pot for preparing and serving the coffee. The pot is designed to keep coffee evenly heated and fresh.

“It was a big undertaking, but everything went extremely well,” said Artie Schulz, National Account Manager at S&D Coffee. “We were thrilled to partner with Olive Garden on such an expansive project. Their enthusiasm for the project, along with the dedication of some 50 S&D employees ‘on the ground,’ ensured our success. We are looking forward to a long and rewarding relationship with Darden Restaurants.”

Darden’s Distinguished Supplier Award is one of numerous Vendor of the Year awards on S&D’s shelf. In recent years, the coffee company has received equivalent distinctions from numerous other national restaurant chains including Capital Grill, Shoney’s and Applebees.

This year, Darden recognized a total of nine vendors and distributors with the Distinguished Supplier Awards. In addition to S&D Coffee, a diverse collection of vendors including the Toluca, Ill.-based Bernardi Italian Foods Company and Trident Seafoods of Seattle, Wash. were recognized.

Darden Restaurants, Inc. is the world's largest casual dining company and owner and operator of 1,300 Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Smokey Bones restaurants based in Orlando, Fla., and employs 140,000 people. The company records annual sales of $4.7 billion and serves more than five million people each week. For more information, please visit www.darden.com.

S&D Coffee, Inc. has coffee, tea and juice product lines that are featured in a wide variety of venues across the United States. The company employs more than 800 workers nationwide. The distinctive S&D business model has the company working primarily through customer-approved national distributors, while maintaining its traditional route business. Dedicated to intensive customer service, S&D supplies, repairs and refurbishes its own brewing equipment; trains customers in the preparation and presentation of the product and maintains a 24-hour toll-free help line that is staffed by live operators. For more information, visit www.sndcoffee.com.