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When Chris Chatterton talks about his team at Bay Food Brokerage as a family, he's not just being hyperbolic.
The Tampa-based retail grocery and food brokerage that now calls Chatterton its president was started by his mother, Cammie Chatterton, and her then-business partner in 1993, when Chris was 6 years old.
An only child, Chris Chatterton's childhood was intrinsically intertwined with the growth of the company he now spearheads alongside his mom. Conversations in the car on the way to sports practices at Jesuit High School often centered on meetings with grocery stores or new manufacturers Bay Foods took on as clients. Precocious from the start, young Chris often tagged along with his mother to meetings at Publix or Albertsons, dutifully carrying her briefcase for her or even trying his hand at pitching new products to boardrooms of executives.
"Chris has always been determined, headstrong from a young child, which is all the necessities that you need to be a great leader," Cammie Chatterton says. "There really wasn't a plan for him to come into the company, but I just knew that someday he would be here, and I couldn't have picked a better person to be beside me every step of the way."
In high school, Chris would work part-time summer jobs at Bay Food Brokerage, setting up product displays or restocking meat in grocery stores. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business he spent several years working as a financial analyst before deciding to return to the family business in 2011.
The company had been stuck in a holding pattern, but within five years of his return to Bay Foods, Chris helped grow the company's revenue from $1.5 million to $2.9 million, up 93.3%. By 2024, Bay Food had more than doubled its staff and quadrupled its annual revenue to $15.96 million.
Chris has spearheaded initiatives to expand the company's Center Store Division, grow its staff and enhance technological capabilities. Most recently, he oversaw a major renovation when the company moved its headquarters to a new Tampa office space.
It's a job he was born to do, and he says he learned from the best.
"I grew up watching my mom work two jobs, busting her butt ... and she didn't even make a paycheck for two years," Chris Chatterton says. "I saw what hard work and determination it takes to make a successful business and because of her we're standing here today as a successful business. I couldn't be prouder to run this organization with my mom."
