Who knew that candy around the checkouts could be big business?
That's been the case for Jim Schweikert and his Chandler-based company Liberty Distribution Co. LLC, which sells candy bars, sweet tarts, bubble gum, potato chips and hundreds of other snacks to retailers that don't specialize in food but want to make an extra buck.
Liberty, which sold more than 8.5 million Snickers bars alone to its retailers last year, distributes to stores where customers go to buy DVD players, ply wood, air conditioning filters and cat litter, not breath mints, beef jerky or Sour Patch candies. But the placement of these products at the checkout has helped even non-food retailers to bolster their sales.
"It's 100-percent impulse (and) it's extra dollars to the retailer,"Schweikert said. "No one is going to these stores to by these items, but they're walking out with them."
That's been the case for Jim Schweikert and his Chandler-based company Liberty Distribution Co. LLC, which sells candy bars, sweet tarts, bubble gum, potato chips and hundreds of other snacks to retailers that don't specialize in food but want to make an extra buck.
Liberty, which sold more than 8.5 million Snickers bars alone to its retailers last year, distributes to stores where customers go to buy DVD players, ply wood, air conditioning filters and cat litter, not breath mints, beef jerky or Sour Patch candies. But the placement of these products at the checkout has helped even non-food retailers to bolster their sales.
"It's 100-percent impulse (and) it's extra dollars to the retailer,"Schweikert said. "No one is going to these stores to by these items, but they're walking out with them."
The 90-person company has charted average annual compound revenue growth of 26 percent over the last four years, according to numbers the company provided.
Liberty's growth attracted a major local investor in Scottsdale-based private equity firm Cave Creek Capital Management LLC, which recently bought a majority stake in the company and plans further expansion.
