Whenever you visit a gas station convenience store in Michigan’s Great Southwest, do you ever wonder where all those various products come from, and how they get distributed to your individual neighborhood in the first place? One very likely answer in many locations is a company in Grand Rapids that is now celebrating its 90th anniversary in business.
S. Abraham & Sons is one of the largest vendor options available to such convenience stores as the entire Pri Mar Petroleum line up as well as American Gas & Oil shops, Dimmick Petroleum, Wesco and others we find in and around the region.
The 90-year old company was founded in 1927 by an immigrant from Lebanon, Sleyman Abraham. It is now a third-generation, family-owned wholesale food distributor who launched nine decades ago as a retailer himself offering candy and other small items to his own neighbors. His family lived in the apartment above the store, allowing him to have a higher level of awareness and commitment to help assure his success. It is still family-owned as Sleyman passed the business on to his three sons Abe, Jim and Wade who in turn have passed it on to their sons with Alan Abraham now President and Jerry Abraham now Senior Executive Vice President of the company.
The company has grown exponentially over the years to a full-tilt distribution network with warehouse centers in suburban Grand Rapids at Walker and in Indianapolis. Now known as simply SAS, the firm services nine Midwestern states including Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
In addition to gas station convenience stores, the company also services multiple colleges and universities across the nine state region.
SAS serves more than 3,500 customers and has more than 500 people on staff handling the sales, ordering, distribution and logistics of handling that many clients.
The company is so large that they actually conduct their own vendor exhibit and trade show which will be staged at the DeVos Place convention center in downtown Grand Rapids this Thursday and Friday, February 23rd and 24th with the theme of The Roaring Twenties marking their start in 1927 and current day success in 2017.
With everything from groceries and tobacco products to health & beauty items as well as fresh sandwiches, fruit and salads, milk and packaged frozen goods the distribution experts handle more than 8,000 items over all.
With even the beginnings of a fourth generation of family members coming into the fold, the future of SAS continues to look bright as they celebrate the 90th anniversary in business in West Michigan.
