Specialty food company manages rush on orders

Empty grocery store shelves — and not just the ones sans toilet paper — present a big, albeit complicated, opportunity for Beneficial Blends, an organic food co-packer and manufacturer. The Tampa-based, 60-employee firm, which did nearly $20 million in sales last year, specializes in edible oils and ghee (highly-clarified butter)-related products.

On the one hand, the firm’s roster of grocery store clients, including Publix and a host of other chains nationwide, are desperate for new products, Beneficial Blends Founder and CEO Erin Meagher says. And they’ve been calling Beneficial Blends frantically for a few weeks, looking for large and rushed orders, both in the company’s branded Kelapo line and its private labels. Asked what lines or varieties are selling best, Meagher says “everything.”

“Retailers are basically wiping out our warehouse,” Meagher adds. One large customer asked Beneficial Blends if it could sell extra goods to them, at the expense of stiffing other customers — a request it politely declined. Other clients, Meagher says, “are sending us pictures of their empty shelves and asking us to get them anything” to restock them.