Coming To America

The DeVirgilio family is proud of their work.

From a 75,000 square foot warehouse in Medford, Massachusetts, the DeVirgilios import high quality Italian foods into New England and distribute them throughout the region.

They do so under the name Accardi Foods.

For decades Accardi Foods has operated as a family operation, starting in a small storefront in Boston's North End and growing into a series of increasingly larger locations. As the space has grown, so has the business. For the DeVirgilios, it has been a labor of love every step of the way.

Accardi Foods is a food distributor. In simple terms, this means that they deal with companies in Italy to import high-end Italian food products to the United States. Most of these products arrive on container ships to large ports in New York and New Jersey. Some products come over on ships directly to Boston Harbor. A few products cross the Atlantic on a plane, landing at Logan International Airport.

Once the products get stateside, whatever the mode of ocean crossing may be, they are sent to the Accardi Foods warehouse at 85 Commercial Street in Medford. Once at the warehouse, the products are sorted according to customer orders and the Accardi Foods trucks are loaded up. When the trucks are full they head out to restaurants and specialty stores across Boston, Eastern Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Anthony DeVirgilio knows his niche.

Anthony is the President of Accardi Foods. He heads a company that has existed since 1972, though it's beginnings can be traced back much farther. He understands that the state of the company now is the result of decades of steady growth; he doesn't think that it's a business model many new entrepreneurs would be interested in.

"If Harvard Business ever came here, they'd say 'Are you f****** crazy?'" Anthony said. "This is not something you could start today. You would need millions of dollars to start this, and if you had that kind of money you wouldn't want to be in this business because it's low gross profit. It's a dangerous business." 

But Accardi Foods isn't a modern startup. It's quite the opposite.

The company's roots were laid in the early 1900's when Antonio Accardi emigrated from Sicily to Boston and settled in the North End. It was here that he started a business in blending and packing olive oil, a craft that he learned in Sicily. He called his business the Accardi Company.

In 1942, John DeVirgilio married Accardi's daughter and began working for his new father-in-law's company as a salesman.

When Accardi passed away it was John that took over the business. He ran the Accardi Company until 1962, when the Boston Redevelopment Authority used eminent domain took over the Commercial Street property. Instead of relocating the business, John decided to close the Accardi Company. He began working as a salesman for the L. Lo Conte Company.

In 1972, L. Lo Conte went out of business and John decided to open a new business. With the help of his son Anthony, John founded the modern incarnation of Accardi Foods. John chose to keep the Accardi name in order to honor his late father-in-law.

"Over the years, people came to think that my father was Accardi," Anthony said.

The business started in East Cambridge, Anthony said, near the Museum of Science.

"That's where the L. Lo Conte Company was," Anthony said. "We actually took over a little area there because the new owner of the property gave us a little space to run our company."

Accardi Foods remained in this location until 1977, when John, Sr. and Anthony moved to the New England Produce Center in Chelsea, Massachusetts. It was at this point in time that the two were joined by Anthony's brother, John, Jr.

"We moved into this 5,000 square foot building in the New England Produce Center and that was really the turning point in Accardi," Anthony said. "Because that put us in front of a lot of people in the food business."

"We built our reputation by paying our bills" - Anthony DeVirgilio, President of Accardi Foods

The business continued to grow, and five years after moving to the new warehouse Accardi Foods expanded it's warehouse to 13,000 square feet. At the same time, the company began to shift it's focus. Initially Accardi Foods focused on selling products to Italian grocery stores in the Boston area, but that focused turned to restaurants as the company's product list began to carry more high end brands.

The shift led to continued growth for the company and by 1988 Accardi Foods had outgrown the expanded warehouse. The company then relocated to a nearby, 32,000 square foot warehouse.

With the increase in business from restaurants came an increase in the number of products that the company imported. Brands such as Barilla and San Pellegrino were introduced in New England by Accardi Foods.

"We were making connections with different people, different companies from Italy," Anthony said. "And we built our reputation by paying our bills. That's how we developed, that's how we got a following. Because we were good, honest people who worked hard."

More family members joined Accardi Foods as the business grew. Marie Cooke, the elder John's daughter, began working in the office. John Jr.'s son Mike DeVirgilio worked in the warehouse growing up before joining the company as a salesman. By 1993, the company had grown large enough that they needed to again. That's when they found the Medford warehouse in which Accardi Foods is currently based.

Nothing stays in one place for long at Accardi Foods.

Today, Accardi Foods keeps over 3,000 products in it's warehouse inventory. But before anything gets to the warehouse, Anthony must decide what products the company is going to bring over.

A big part of the decision making process is one or two trips every year that Anthony takes to visit specialty trade shows in Italy. These shows are a chance for him to sample to products and make decisions based on what he thinks will sell well with his customers in New England.

"People's tastes have changed," Anthony said. "The old-timers have come and gone. There are products that have become more popular because of [health research]. For instance olive oil. When we were in the business 40 years ago, there were only two olive oils sold in this country; there was Filippo Berrio and there was Bertolli." 

Sometimes, one of Accardi Foods's customers will request that a specific product be imported from Italy. In these case, Mike said, Anthony and the rest of the company's management must decide if they can sell enough of that one product to make it worth their while.

Another way that a product can be brought over is through a process that Joe Russo, the operations manager at Accardi Foods, calls "backdooring". Russo describes this as a scenario in which an Italian brand sells directly to a customer in New England with the agreement that Accardi Foods will serve as the distributor.

Anthony said that the final choice on whether or not to add a new product is always a committee decision.

"I think with the whole group now, it's more or less a committee," Anthony said. "We get together, we look at [the product], where we're going to promote, how to promote and how to sell something."

If a product is deemed worthy, it is sent across the ocean from Italy to the United States. When it arrives, the product is put on a truck and delivered to the Accardi Foods warehouse in Medford. Some products are flown in directly to Logan International, but this is a very small amount according to Mike. He estimates that 95 percent of the imported product arrives on a truck.

Once the product arrives at the warehouse, it is sorted by customer order. Sometimes a product must be further refined in the warehouse before it is ready to be sent out to customers. This is usually the case for cheese and nuts, which are shipped in large quantities and must be separated into smaller amounts for the customer.

This is where Paul Brogna comes in. Brogna, who has been with the company since 2002, is the repack manager at Accardi Foods. Working by himself, though sometimes with Russo's help, Brogna breaks down bulk shipments of products into the appropriate, customer-requested amounts.

When the time for delivery comes, the orders are loaded onto one of Accardi Foods's 11 trucks and sent out to customers. The orders are organized on the warehouse floor the day before shipment by floor supervisor Dave Sensale. A company employee for the past 15 years, Sensale spent much of that time as a truck driver. Russo said that he moved Sensale to the new position because he has a unique understanding of how the trucks need to be loaded in order to maximize efficiency. Warehouse workers begin loading the trucks around 4 a.m., and the last truck is on the road by 7 a.m.

The trucks deliver along custom routes each day. The routes are created by Michael Cooke, the logistics manager at Accardi Foods. The trucks deliver throughout Boston, eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and southern New Hampshire. According to Cooke, the longest route is the Wednesday run out Provincetown on Cape Cod.

Accardi Foods also contracts with sub-distributors to reach the rest of New England.

The warehouse is open to receive and distribute products six days a week. According to Mike, the constant flow of product in and out of the warehouse means that Accardi Foods is able to better satisfy the needs of the customer.

"We can pivot a lot faster than [the major distributors like Sysco] can," Mike said. Russo is quick to agree.

"You can put an order in at 9 p.m. and have it at 8 a.m.," Russo said. "No one else in this industry does that."

For the sales team, the test kitchen in the warehouse offers a unique advantage in both deciding whether or not to add a new Italian product and winning over new local customers.

The test kitchen allows Accardi Foods to sample new products and show off new products to customers.

"Barilla used to fly in chefs from Italy," Mike said, referring to how Barilla used to make sales pitches to Accardi Foods.

The Accardi Foods warehouse is also home to another business, Espresso Plus. Found in 1991 and a partner of Accardi Foods since 2003, Espresso Plus imports espresso machines and parts from Italy and Switzerland and distributes them to businesses large and small throughout New England.

"We sell the Ferrari of espresso machines," Espresso Plus owner Tom Pappa says.

According to Pappa, Espresso Plus has exclusivity agreements for the New England region with multiple Italian companies. These agreements are for parts, which means that whenever a business in New England needs an espresso machine repaired, that business goes to Espresso Plus. Pappa's company employs nine technicians to handle the repair business.

Mike DeVirgilio has big plans for the family business.

Accardi Foods will stay in the DeVirgilio family, and when Anthony decides its time to step down Mike will be part of the next generation of leadership. And Mike already has ideas.

Mike sees increasing the number of exclusive regional distribution deals with Italian brands as an important step. According to Mike, Accardi Foods used to hold more of these deals than they currently do, and he'd like to get back to that.

"It's not a big thing nowadays," Mike said. "I'd love to see more exclusive brands in this building."

Mike gave two examples of new exclusive deals that Accardi Foods has added recently. The first is with Divella, a company that focuses mainly on making pasta. Accardi Foods sees Divella as the answer to Barilla, an exclusive deal that Accardi Foods lost once Barilla became a more well-known brand in the United States.

The second new deal that Mike is excited about is an agreement with Bindi, an Italian dessert company. The Bindi deal is about a year old; before that the dessert company had been self-distributing but they just couldn't handle that side of the business according to Mike. A major part of this new deal, Mike said, is that Accardi Foods must carry the full line of Bindi products.

This requirement is both a blessing and a curse for Accardi Foods. In order to move the increased amount of Bindi product, the sales team has started insisting that customers with small orders take on a few Bindi cakes. Russo said that this is necessary not just because there are so many Bindi cakes sitting in the Accardi Foods freezer, but also that the small orders are not cost efficient.

"The trucks are expensive to run," Russo said. "This has to be worth our time."

Mike and Russo estimate that Accardi Foods has lost about 100 customers as a result of the Bindi deal. Still, Mike said that the new product is popular and selling very well and that he has no regrets about adding the line. Anthony agrees.

"There's always bumps in the road whenever you take on a product," Anthony said. "But we've worked through those, we've tweaked it to a point where it gives us an opportunity to sell to more people. So it's worked out well and it's going in a positive direction."

Mike has also started a business of his own, and he hopes to use the resources available to him via Accardi Foods to help grow it. Mike created Boston Game Tables, a company that sells shuffleboard tables, pool tables and cornhole sets.

The most important thing to Mike is to make sure that Accardi Foods continues to grow. He said that each time the company took a risk on a bigger property it paid off, and he'd like to oversee an expansion of his own.

"I would love to double this company size-wise," Mike said. "I would love to double this company size-wise. This building is getting pretty full. When I was growing up and I was a kid running around this building on my roller-blades, there was a lot of open space. It's awesome to see that in the last 20 years, we're really filling up this building."

Technology is key to continuing the company's growth according to Mike. He said that new software allows Accardi Foods to run more efficiently in all aspects. He listed the fact that now all of the company's truck drivers are on the roads with an iPad as an example of how technology helps the business run smoother.

"When a customer calls and asks, 'When's my order going to be here?', I can see that [a truck] is two stops away and it estimates it'll be there in 45 minutes." Mike said. "People are happy with that. I think technology is going to grow this business and let this business survive."

Still, Anthony has no plans of just leaving the business altogether.

"My brother [John, Jr.], [Mike's] father, and I will have a say," Anthony said. "I'm in it to stay. I'm not thinking about stopping."

As Mike and Anthony take the time to think about the future of Accardi Foods, they keep the memory of John, Sr. close.

"My father passed away three years ago," Anthony said. "He would've been blown away by this. My father was always very proud of the work that we've done."

"He was a family man, too," Mike said. "I know he'd be ecstatic to see me here. I wish I got to be here when he was still here everyday."

Michael Sol Warren is a graduate student studying journalism at Boston University's College of Communication.