Resource Center

Welcome to the Fantastical, Neon World of Trolli… Where everything Trolli touches transforms into something bright, happy, and sweet…for as long as it takes to eat a delicious Sour Brite Crawler. If it’s weirdly awesome you want, get your paws on our Unique Shapes. Each pack is like an unforgettable snackventure. Sour Brite All-Star Mix Trolli, the original Inventors of the Gummi Worm, launched Sour Brite All-Star Mix in 2019. All-Star Sour Brite features the most original shapes in a single bag, including: Crawlers, Sloths, Octopuses, Llamas and Tiny Hands. Sour Brite Mystery Night Crawlers Mystery offers a unique twist on Trolli’s Sour Brite Crawlers – white and neon sour sanded gummi worms that won’t give away their flavors until you take a bite! Each pack contains three dual flavored crawlers. Crawlers are colored white & pink, white & green and white & blue. What do they taste like? You’ll have to try them to find out.  You won’t want to miss out on these exciting new products from Trolli! Be sure to talk to your Harbor Rep and add them to your candy aisle today.

Operating 9 locations throughout Northern California serving Chevron, 76 and Valero gasoline. Harbor’s Regional Sales Manager, Tonya Walker recently met with Mountain Markets’ Director of Operations, Jared Warren to discuss Mountain Market’s recent transition to Harbor. In the next 5 years, how do you see Mountain Markets’ brand evolving? We are working on developing a Foodservice program that is unique and tailored to our customer’s wants and needs. We are excited to partner with Harbor and begin developing a program that will best suit our customers. Our stores are located in a rural area, so being able to provide a wide variety of foodservice items for our customers, from hot breakfast items, to on-the-go dinners, will be another value added for our local community. We are finalizing the launch of our store branding for Treeline Cafe. This new brand is fresh and eye-catching. The new program branding will refresh and update the look and feel of our stores. Staying on top of trends is important in the convenience store industry, and new branding will differentiate our store in our local community. What is something unique about the Mountain Markets chain of stores? Like Harbor, Mountain Markets is also family owned and operated. Being able to partner with other family owned companies has allowed us to keep things local. With Harbor’s help we also began the early phases of launching our new brand for Mountain Markets called Treeline Cafe. We embrace technology and utilize it to be organized and communicate more effectively. This benefits both our team members and our community. We played an active roles in assisting our community during and after the Boles fire here in Weed, California. We also raise money every year for a local Breast Cancer organization as well as contribute to child abuse prevention for our local Community Centers. Since 2010, over $144,000 has been raised for Breast Cancer and since 2013 over $30,000 has been raised for Child Abuse Prevention in our area. How has Harbor helped you achieve your mission since becoming your supplier? Since partnering with Harbor, we have been able to reduce the number of distributors we use and streamline our process of bringingin the products that we need. Through partnering with Harbor and their sales reps, we have also been able to develop a strategic partnering plan that promotes more effective communication and involvement within each of our stores, allowing our managers to become better educated about the products that we carry. Harbor has also helped us in the execution of our branding for our locations by assisting us in developing a brand for our coffee and foodservice programs. Thank you Mountain Markets for taking the time to speak with us, and for being a valued Harbor Customer!

This year the Washington Food Industry Association launched the Excellence in Safety Award. They came to Harbor, as well as many other businesses, and interviewed our (and the competition’s) CEO, a safety committee member, a floor employee, and a manager to learn about what we are doing and evaluate our commitment to safety. They also reviewed our applicable documentation and completed a facility walkthrough to spot check our work and validate the effectiveness of our programs. Other large businesses in the WFIA include Charlie’s Produce, Franz, and McLane Northwest as well as many other grocery store chains and suppliers. We have many great partners who became our competition for this award and we won! I’m proud to announce that Harbor Wholesale Foods was selected as the winner of the 1st Annual Excellence in Safety Award! We are very proud of our team’s achievement. We have been anxious to raise the bar on safety in any way possible. In entering evaluation for this award, the chance to win was a driving factor, but the ultimate motivator was to up our game; to meet and exceed the standards set forth. We were also interested in seeing who else would enter to give us some ideas with whom to compare programs and drive further excellence. We have been establishing a culture wherein every manager’s primary job is safety manager. We have been empowering employees to deeply engage in the safety of the team, driving increasing feedback, suggestions, and participation in the safety process. While we have improved our results, establishing a healthy management commitment to safety is our proudest achievement. Congratulations Team Harbor for making a difference in safety! Congratulations for caring for our team and community by building our culture of safety! Excellence is a pursuit, a way of life, not an end. Keep driving!

We are excited to announce that Harbor Wholesale Foods is now working with Partnership For a Healthier America (PHA) to promote healthier foods to our customers and team members in the Pacific Northwest. PHA was founded in 2010 in conjunction with Let’s Move! by the nation’s health and obesity advocates like former First Lady Michelle Obama, and US Senator Cory A. Bookter (D-NJ). PHA brings together companies to establish meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity and promote healthy eating. They also ensure that commitments are kept by working with unbiased, third parties to monitor and publicly report on the progress their partners are making to show what can be achieved when several companies work together. Everyone deserves a chance to be healthy, and PHA works to make healthy food options more readily available in areas they previously may not have been. Beginning in 2019, Harbor will be working to update some of our programs to meet PHA’s health standards. PHA has partnered with NACS to create a healthier product calculator that allows distributors, like Harbor, to easily identify packaged foods and beverages that meet PHA’s Healthier Food and Beverage Product Criteria. The calculator considers the product’s nutrient quality (like fat and sodium content) and the product’s primary ingredients (such as whole grains or fruits and vegetables) to determine if it is healthy or not. The programs being updated include our Snack Right Rack as well as our Fresh Zone Cooler. Currently, about 35% of items on the Snack Right Rack meet the PHA health standards, and in 2019 we are going to be updating the rack so that 50% of items fit PHA’s health standards. The Fresh Zone Cooler currently has 60% of items that meet the criteria, and Harbor will be working to maintain and improve that. According to NACS, from 2017 to 2018 more than 61% of convenience retailers said that sales of better-for-you items (fruits/vegetables, yogurts,  nuts, health bars) experienced sales gains. In addition to updating programs and racks, Harbor will be participating in PHA’s campaign, Drink Up. Drink Up was established between PHA and former First Lady Michelle Obama to encourage people to drink more water and more often. You are what you drink, so drink up! Harbor will be creating point of sale materials to promote water consumption as well as begin promoting water consumption around our office. According to a 2016 report from NACS, bottled water outshined soda in sales for the first time in U.S. history. Bottled water producers pointed to American’s desiring portable, calorie-free beverages for the increase in bottled water sales. This trend is predicted to continue in the coming years. While you’re flipping through this month’s Retail Solutions, be on the lookout for the PHA Proud Partner Logo. The items designated with this logo meet the PHA Healthier Food and Beverage Product Criteria. The New Year is a great time to start offering more healthy products as customers will be seeking these items out. We also will be adding the Proud Partner logo to items in our Foodservice Solutions book and our monthly e-newsletters, Fresh Ideas and Popular Products. Harbor is excited to grow the offering of healthy products that we supply and make them more available for our customers around the Pacific Northwest. Here’s to a healthier 2019 and beyond!

The sun is shining, the weather is warmer, and people are outside cooking up tasty meals on the grill! When it comes to grilling, nothing is more important than good charcoal, and Kingsford has you covered from lighter fluid, to flavored charcoal briquettes. Kingsford Charcoal has been made in the USA, with North American ingredients, wince 1919. Kingsford is also the leading manufacturer of charcoal in the United States, converting more than one million tons of wood scraps into charcoal briquettes each year. Kingsford is the original taste of summer, and it’s been the gold standard of grilling for nearly 100 years. Each briquet is made with natural ingredients and real wood to ensure the smoky flavor barbecue lover crave. Let your customer take their grilling to the next level by stocking your store with Kingsford charcoal products. Harbor carries a variety of Kingsford products, ensuring that you can bring in the best selection for your customers. Talk to your Harbor Rep or check out page 11 of the July promo book to learn more.

Zachary works in RDC as an Assistant Warehouse Manager. During his time at Harbor he has worked a few different roles, and had some great thoughts to share about getting your career started at Harbor. Q: What roles have you held at Harbor? Z: Utility/I have picked everywhere/Stamped Cigs/Consolidated/Inventory Control/PM Warehouse Supervisor/ Assistant Warehouse Manager Q: How did you make the transition from where you started to where you are now? Z: Aaron hired me into a PM utility position. I picked up boxes for a couple of months and then moved into eaches as an order selector. While working in eaches I was crossed trained on just about every PM position. After about a year, a position opened up In the freezer. I did that for another year or so. From there I moved into Inventory control. I learned a lot about how the AM shift worked while in that position, as well as learning a lot about the company in general. I did that for I believe close to 2 years. Then, Chris Ritter and Leon Dillon approached me with a promotion into a PM supervisor role. I gladly accepted! Now, I am an Assistant Warehouse Manager. Q: How long have you been with Harbor? Z: 9 ½ years. Q: Any advice for advancing your career at Harbor? Z: For me, a willingness to work and a willingness to learn, has worked pretty well. Don’t be afraid to take on a big or important task. Q: What do you think is the most important quality to have to get your career started at Harbor? Z: I don’t know if I could say just 1 quality that is most important. Everybody is different, and no 2 people will take the same path within the company. I think being genuine, motivated, resourceful, & friendly are all good qualities to have! 😊 Just be you, and be willing to learn and teach and your positive qualities will come out through that. This will be recognized by not only your supervisors and managers, but also your peers.

Dylan's path of progress is unique, as he joined Harbor during the acquisition of Bur-Bee in 2004. He has held various roles, all while working towards his current role as Director of Sales. Q: What roles have you held at Harbor? D: Territory Sales Manager, Regional Sales Manager, General Sales Manager, and now Director of Sales Q: How did you make the transition from where you started to where you are now? D: My opportunity presented itself as a truck loader on the night shift. I remember it being important to me as a truck loader that I did my job well enough that it would benefit the delivery driver's day on route. I would often receive notes from the delivery team thanking me or offering feedback. This feedback was not all of the time positive but ultimately constructive. My previous employer was acquired by Harbor on April 19, 2004. I started a very new role for me, Territory Sales Manager. Q: How long have you been with Harbor? D: Almost 29 years. Q: And advice for advancing your career at Harbor? D: In a company like Harbor, every position is an opportunity for growth. Work hard and conscientiously not only for yourself but the people around you. Q: What do you think is the most important quality to get your career started at Harbor? D: I think that if you find meaning in our values (Genuine, Motivated, Resourceful, Friendly) you could potentially have a career at Harbor.

Justin has been with Harbor since July of 2015, starting as a Territory Sales Manager and them moved into the Regional Sales Manager role. Continue reading to learn more about his path of progress at Harbor and how he transitioned into his current position. Q: How did you make the transition from where you started to where you are now? J: My transition into my new position was smooth as I had prior experience as a sales manager, and felt like had great training here at Harbor. Q: How long have you been with Harbor? J: I’ve been with Harbor since July of 2015 Q: Any advice for advancing your career at Harbor? J: Learn as much as you can in all aspects of the business. Work with Territory Sales Managers, Drivers, Store Solutions, Warehouse, Buyers, Credits, Customer Service, Marketing, Accounts Departments. Q: What roles have you held at Harbor? J: Before my current position of Regional Sales Manager I was a Territory Sales Manager. Q: What do you think is the most important quality to have to get your career started at Harbor? J: The want and willingness to learn. This business is always growing and changing and being able to and wanting to learn is key in being successful.