Case Study: Queen City Catering

Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, Queen City Catering is a renowned catering company that serves all types of celebrations with its detail-oriented approach to culinary excellence. Our friend, Andrew Matroni, founded Queen City Catering in 2010 and has since grown it into a well-known brand with 40+ full-time employees and a custom-built catering headquarters that covers 10,000 sq. ft. (just about a quarter acre).

Upon meeting, it was clear that Andrew had big goals set for QC Catering, and he had the motivation and creativity to achieve them. We became fast friends, but Andrew still had his hesitations about becoming a member of SB Value. He didn’t have any experience with a group purchasing organization (GPO), and he understandably wanted to ask us questions. 

Andrew is analytical by nature, asking all of the right questions as we talked about the program and how it could support QC Catering’s goals. Before long, he started to see how our model would save him money. It stands to reason that a large-scale organization with 28,000 clients and $7 billion in leverage could get better prices than any individual business. It makes sense.

But what really hit home for Andrew was the direct connection and support from US Foods. Price savings are essential for increasing your bottom line, but if you truly want to achieve sustainable growth, you also have to optimize the processes in the kitchen. And while Andrew is brilliant at what he does, he recognized that while he sees one kitchen every day, US Foods gets to see thousands of kitchens operating in different ways.

Six years later, Andrew is one of our best clients and continues to get the most out of his membership with SB Value. It’s not because he places more orders but because he asks a lot of open-ended questions. He’s always looking to learn better ways to run his kitchen. He’s constantly asking what we could do better and how US Foods can help him. 

That pursuit of “better” is why he maximizes the value of his membership, and it’s why his catering business continues to thrive. We didn’t make him a better caterer — he was already a pro by the time we met him. However, we did provide him with the resources he needed to become more efficient and profitable as a company.

That’s really the crux of a GPO’s value. Saving on food cuts down expenses, which attracts catering professionals who want to pad their profit margins. And if that’s all you’re looking for, we can definitely help you with that.

But if you want to transform how you do business on top of saving on each order, that’s where the magic happens — and we’re here to be your partners on this growth journey. Start by getting a quote today.