Company: CHEF
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001517175-25-000002
Chunk: 18

Company: Chefs' Warehouse, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 18
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 and bring to market new products that will continue to support our value proposition.

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Within our product offerings, we carry numerous gourmet brands, and at the same time, we seek to maximize product contribution through the sale of our proprietary brands, which we offer in a number of staple products, including bulk olive oil, Italian grating cheeses and butter. We believe that our ability to offer simultaneously high-quality specialty foods and ingredients, center-of-the-plate products, produce and more traditional broadline staple food products provides our customers with foodservice distribution solutions that are efficient and cost effective.

Our Sophisticated and Experienced Sales Professionals

We employ a sophisticated and experienced sales force of approximately 980 sales and customer service professionals focused on meeting our customers’ goals and objectives, while concurrently educating them regarding our latest products and broader culinary trends. Our sales force is composed of the following three distinct groups which are all focused on providing outstanding service to our customers:

•Outside Sales Associates: Responsible for identifying sales opportunities, educating customers and acting as our public representatives.

•Inside Sales Associates: Responsible for processing customer orders and arranging for delivery and payment.

•Product Specialists: Responsible for maintaining specialized product knowledge and educating our outside sales associates and customers regarding new products and general developments in several specific categories, including meat, seafood, pastry and cheese.

A significant number of our sales professionals have formal culinary training, degrees in the culinary arts and/or prior experience working in the culinary industry. We strive to harness this culinary knowledge and passion for food and to concurrently promote an entrepreneurial working environment. Utilizing advanced pricing optimization software available to them on a real-time basis, our sales professionals are afforded flexibility to determine the pricing of individual items for our customers within a range of pricing options. The majority of our outside sales professionals are compensated on a commission basis, and their performance is measured primarily upon their gross profit dollars obtained. We have historically experienced low turnover among our seasoned sales professionals.

Because we are highly focused on collaborating with our customers and educating them regarding our latest products and broader culinary trends, we view the ongoing education and training of our sales force as crucial to our continued success. To ensure that our sales professionals remain on the forefront of new culinary products and trends, we regularly hold “vendor shows” at our distribution centers, where our sales force is able to interact with vendors and learn more about the vendors’ latest product offerings and the performance of these products relative to competitive offerings.

Our Suppliers

We are committed to providing our customers with an unrivaled portfolio of specialty food products, as well as a