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The winds of change have blown steadily through Dennis Paper and Food Service for 94 years, but some favorable gusts in the last 10 years have made the locally owned business a multimillion dollar corporation.
Originally established as a two-man operation making and delivering soda in Washington County, the firm since has evolved into a major wholesale distributor of paper goods, cleaning supplies and food products to businesses from Augusta to Houlton.
“To survive 94 years in northeast Maine and compete with multibillion dollar corporations you have to change,” said Ron Dennis, a third-generation owner and president of the company. “I enjoy change because you don’t live the same day twice.”
The company was founded in 1908 when Dennis’ grandfather, Max Dennis, and great uncle, Hyman Dennis – seeking a new life in the United States after leaving their homes in Russia – began Washington County Bottling Co. in Cherryfield to produce and distribute their own line of soft drinks.
Adapting to changing times over the years, the business has switched and expanded product lines, changed names, and physically moved several times since the two brothers carted their soft drinks to several area towns by horse-drawn wagon.
Last year, Dennis Paper and Food Service made nearly $10 million in sales, offering a diverse line of about 5,000 products to more than 2,000 customers.
Serving government agencies, inns, nursing homes, restaurants, convenience stores and schools, the company has for more than a decade offered a complete selection of janitorial supplies and disposable paper service items, from cleaning agents to paper cups, napkins and plates.
With the company’s most recent foray into food distribution and its relocation last month from Veazie to more spacious facilities in Bangor, the Dennis family hopes to double sales in the coming year.
“In the last five years we’ve added around 3,000 [food service] items and we have plans to add several thousand more in the next few months,” sales representative Neal McCrum said. “You have to change to grow and you have to be diversified to be successful.”
Rather than trying to expand farther geographically, the company wants to concentrate on serving more of their current clients’ needs and on capturing more of the local market with its expanding product lines.
The first in what would become a progressive string of adaptive changes for the company began when what was then Washington County Bottling Co. moved to Ellsworth in 1915, shortly after Max Dennis purchased his brother’s share of the company.
In Ellsworth, Max Dennis began his company’s evolution into a successful distribution firm by delivering Hire’s Root Beer along with his own University Club Beverages. The change in services prompted the first of many name changes, to Dennis Bottling Works.
When Max Dennis died in 1949, his son Lawrence Dennis took over leadership of the growing company and soon added beer and wine to the distribution list. Two decades later, in 1969, he sold the bottling franchise to Pepsi Cola Co. and relocated his remaining distribution business to Veazie.
The new phase of the company’s life prompted its second name change and Dennis Bottling Works became Dennis Beverage Co.
In an effort to diversify the company’s services and reach a broader customer base, Dennis Beverage Co. added a wholesale paper distribution division in 1972. Just six years later, the firm entered the retail food industry by becoming the regional distributor to area supermarkets for Cain’s Foods.
Then in 1982, while still more heavily focused on disposable paper products and janitorial supplies, the company slowly expanded its food distribution services when it began providing a limited number of pizza ingredients to mom and pop stores and restaurants. At about the same time, the company started phasing out its deliveries of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, prompting another name change in 1987, this time to Dennis Paper Co.
Eighty-two-year-old Lee Dennis, Lawrence Dennis’ wife of 50 years and a former front office employee who still helps with work at the company, helped oversee the dramatic changes over the last five decades.
“From necessity we went into something we thought we could build on,” Lee Dennis said. “We started selling paper bags and that was the start of the disposable paper business with the paper bags, cups and toilet paper, and whatever came up from there we took on.”
The necessity of change was an idea engrained into Ron Dennis’ mind while growing up with the family business.
“My father used to say, ‘There’s no such thing as standing still in business. You either push forward or let gravity slide you backwards,'” Ron Dennis said. “Changes were made for survival.”
In 2000, Ron Dennis, who had worked as a truck driver, sales representative, warehouse worker and front office employee, took over as owner and president of Dennis Paper Co. for his ailing father who died a year later.
The change in ownership did not equal a significant change in style, however, Lee Dennis said.
“They were both very broadminded and took advantage of opportunities,” she said. “Ron thinks very progressive and that’s what we need right now.”
After graduating with degrees in business management and marketing from the University of Maine in the mid-1970s, Ron Dennis left Maine for San Francisco and what it had to offer. After a year as a doorman at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, he spent a year traveling the United States before returning home.
“I wanted to get as far away from Maine and as far away from the business as I could,” he explained. “I never realized how good I had life until I was gone.
“I like the rural atmosphere of Maine and the people are friendly here,” Ron Dennis said. “It all made me realize how lucky I was to be in Maine.”
The business was dominated by family employees during the now 48-year-old Ron Dennis’ youth, with his parents, sister, Michelle Dennis, brothers Hayden and Mark Dennis, and aunt, Bertha Dennis, working in numerous capacities. Michelle Dennis, who died in 1985 at the age of 31, installed most of the computer system that helped initially organize distribution efforts, Lee Dennis said.
Now, Ron Dennis, Hayden Dennis, who works as a front office employee, and Lee Dennis with her contributions are the only family employees remaining until the next generation is old enough to possibly help out within the next 10 years.
Even though the need for workers outside the family has increased, the quality of the now more than 30 employees has not changed, the owner said.
“We’re careful to find people with the same philosophies to work with – not necessarily for – us,” Ron Dennis said. “The strength of the organization is determined by teamwork and the cooperation of the employees and the customers to provide a high quality service level.”
And more like-minded employees will be needed soon. The company has already begun the process of hiring additional sales representatives to aid the company’s expected growth.
A few new items the company will begin carrying in the next few months are fresh seafood, meat, poultry and ice cream, sales agent McCrum said. Changes in the near future also will present an increase in the firm’s selection of cheeses and frozen seafood, with the possibility of bringing soft drinks back to the distribution list.
The expansion in food distribution services forced Dennis Paper Co. to recently complete the sixth name change in company history, to Dennis Paper and Food Service two months ago, Ron Dennis said. The change was necessary to let customers know the company was more than a disposable-paper-product distribution center.
Part of the growing process has included a move from the home of operations for the last 33 years on School Street in Veazie to a newer, more spacious location on Thatcher Street in Bangor at the former home of Jordan’s Meats.
“In the last four to five years we had brought in all we could do up at Veazie,” McCrum said. “We just didn’t have the room to bring in stuff to continue to grow.”
The new home provides Dennis Paper and Food Service the room it needs to grow and fill company expectations, McCrum said. Holding three times the dry storage and 10 times the refrigerated storage capacity as the Veazie location, the new building also gives the company four additional loading bays and a freezer storage area the company did not have before.
“When you get into $20 million in sales, that’s a good number for us to be at,” McCrum said. “This building could handle that real easy.”
Company officials have high expectations for the coming year, anticipating sales to increase by nearly 30 percent because of the increased inventory and building capabilities and because of the sale last month of the nearest competition, Serca Foodservice Inc.
Sysco Corp., North America’s largest food service marketer and distributor with New England operations based in Westbrook, recently completed the purchase of Serca Foodservice Inc, according to information published on Sysco’s Web site. Ron Dennis believes Serca, which has a distribution facility in Hampden, was purchased by Sysco primarily to acquire the company’s Canadian-based operations. While his company’s move from Veazie to Bangor wasn’t based upon that premise, Ron Dennis admits the prospect made the move an easier decision.
“Sysco will probably close the Serca office in this area because they wanted the big service in Canada,” Ron Dennis said. “We’re hoping this will be an opportunity for us to fill a void in this area and continue to grow.”
Calls to Serca and Sysco offices about the possible closure of the Hampden facility have not been returned.
While Dennis Paper and Food Service has relied heavily on change, some things are best left alone, Ron Dennis said.
The company has no intentions of expanding its coverage area beyond the boundaries of Augusta and Houlton, he said.
“When our customers need something, we try to get it to them as soon as possible,” McCrum said. “We’re a locally owned and operated business and people know us and we know them, so it’s like helping your neighbor.”
The changes that have been made are to ensure that the company that has passed through three generations of the Dennis family continues on for many more generations, Ron Dennis said.
“I think [my grandfather] would be proud that we were able over 94 years of adjustment to survive and be prosperous and profitable,” he said. “You need change to be able to compete to survive and compete to win. … I think we’ve done that.”
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