From Family Business to Industry Titan: Rising to the Top of Foodservice Brokerage with Taylor Crown, past President of Acosta

In this episode of the Titans of Foodservice podcast, host Nick Portillo speaks with Taylor Crown, past President of Acosta. Taylor started his career working alongside his father in their family-owned food service brokerage, Buzz Crown Enterprises. Taylor shares his remarkable journey in the food service industry and his journey to becoming the President of Acosta Food Service. He discusses how the food service industry has undergone significant changes, including the nationalization of food service agencies and consolidation in various parts of the value chain, and valuable insights into the evolving nature of the industry.

Quotes

"Ultimately clients in our industry are always kind of searching for what is my ideal go-to-market strategy and what is the mix of kind of a direct versus an agency salesforce, what are the appropriate mix of resources against channels and segments and products, and so forth. So I would expect that evolution to continue." -Taylor Crown[18:56]

“Being confident enough or at least self-aware enough to say: ‘What would I do differently? How would I adjust? What were sort of the failure points in the relationship? Did a competitor think about it differently than I did? And I think that's a crucial part of just how you evolve as a small business owner.” -Taylor Crown [24:43]

TIMESTAMPS

[03:41] Taylor's family background in the industry and his start in college

[10:28] Learning from his father's success in the industry

[13:02] Selling the business

[18:16] Factors driving industry consolidation

[25:11] Reflecting on and learning from client losses

[29:03] Transitioning from the manufacturer side to the brokerage business

[34:59] The spectrum of knowing what to do in a career

[38:30] Learning lessons later that could have been applied earlier

[40:02] The difference between a client and a customer

[40:52] Importance of aligning with the client's mission

RESOURCES