Niche Market

here's the beef? Try the
Sherwood Food Dis-
tributors warehouse in
northeastern Detroit.
They have two million pounds
of fresh beef on hand at all times,
along with a similar quantity of
both poultry and pork. If you ate
non-kosher meat today, it is
more than likely that what you
ate came through the Sherwood
Food Distributors warehouse.
However, you may never have
heard of Sherwood Food Dis-
tributors unless you're in the
food business. The largest in-
dependent meat distribution
company in the United States,
Sherwood Food Distributors is
ranked 12th among the lead-
ing privately held companies
in the five-county metro De-
troit area, based upon 1996
revenues.
Earl Ishbia and J. Lawrence
"Larry" Tushman are the com-
pany's managing partners.
They are, according to their
own description, two Jewish
boys who have made their for-
tune cornering the pork mar-
ket.
Sherwood Food Distributors'
annual sales are about $700
million, up from $650 million
in 1995. The company has al-
most 600 employees, with 245
working in metro Detroit.
It sells 12 million pounds of
meat every week. On an aver-
\ age day, it will ship 1 million
pounds from the company's
heavily secured, 85,000-
square-foot refrigerated De-
troit warehouse, where they
maintain the largest invento-
ry of fresh meat in the state of
Michigan.
The company also has a
150,000-square-foot ware-
house in Cleveland; addition-
al warehouses in Cincinnati,
Ft. Wayne and Kalamaz000;
and offices in Atlanta, Dallas,
Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and
Youngstown and Toledo, Ohio.
Sherwood Food Distributors
is a Michigan partnership of
Orleans International and Re-
gal Packing.
Regal is owned by Earl Ish-
bia and Alex Karp. Orleans,
owned by Larry Tushman and
his brother, Earl, was formed
in 1937 by grandfather and fa-
ther, Max and Harry Tush-
man.
At that time, Orleans' main
business was the processing of
chicken and the distribution of
poultry, selling wholesale to
supermarkets in the Detroit
area. Although Larry Tush-
man isn't certain, the compa-
Earl ishbia and J. Laurence Tatman
ny may have taken its name
have become specialized.
from Orleans Street near De-

You may have never heard of Sherwood Foods, the
largest independent meat supplier in the United States.

ALAN ABRAMS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

troit's Eastern Market. Obvi-
ously, that's how Sherwood Food
Distributors, located on Sher-
wood Avenue, got its name.
When Ishbia and Tushman
formed Sherwood Food Distrib-
utors on Oct. 19, 1987, the stock
market's infamous "Black Mon-
day," they put the distribution
end of Orleans into the Sherwood
package. But the import meat
business remained separately
with Orleans.
Orleans International is today
the largest importer of meat from
Australia and New Zealand into
the United States. Earl Tush-
man runs that business from a
sales office at Maple and Inkster
roads in Bloomfield Township.
Regal Packing was formed in
1969 by Ishbia, who had begun
his career with another meat
company in the early 1960s. Re-
gal was primarily a distributor
of fresh pork but, like Orleans,
diversified over time, and began
handling more of a full line of
meat products. Regal and Or-
leans quickly became competi-
tors.
"We both came to the realiza-
tion in the mid-1980s that this
industry was consolidating," said
Ishbia, "and we felt that by join-
ing our two companies together
we'd become one larger, stronger
company to be able to service our
market area, which at that time
was lower Michigan.
"Since that time, we've ex-
panded our operations consider-
ably. Over the last 10 years we've
increased our business five- or
six-fold. And we used to have
three to four times as many com-
petitors as we have today."
Sherwood's business is geared
toward three different segments.
Primarily, the company services
the supermarket industry with
fresh meats. But it also supplies
fast-food restaurants like Ken-
tucky Fried Chicken and
Church's Fried Chicken. and food
service wholesalers who in turn
sell to restaurants and other es-
tablishments. Sherwood Food
Distributors estimates their cus-
tomer base at 2,500.
Both Ishbia and Tushman
spend their time mainly at Sher-
wood's Detroit headquarters. The
partners share the day-to-day
management of the company,
with Tushman focusing more
upon the administrative side of
the business and Ishbia on the
sales and marketing end. "We
complement each other," said
Ishbia.
Said Tushman, "I think one of
the reasons why we've become a
success is that the two of us
think so similarly and get along

NICHE MARKET page 112