History of DVA
DVA was formed in 2003 by industry veterans, Lee Deminski and Rich Van Valkenburg as an alternative to the current Broker representation in Southern California. Rich had retired from Ralphs Grocery Company as Director of Produce a year earlier to be a part-time sales and marketing consultant. Lee had just retired from Ready Pac as Vice President of Sales to form a consulting partnership with Rich, focusing on retail and supply-side produce marketing.
After joining forces, it rapidly became apparent that they should expand their business to broker representative, as both highly successful principals and retailers were “suggesting” that they would be more effective as brokers than much of the current representation in Southern California. Deminski, Van Valkenburg & Associates was formed as a broker representative and consulting firm serving the Southern California marketplace.
Several high profile principals quickly signed up DVA as their broker representative and took a risk on a partnership with all the skills to represent them, but unproven as broker performers. With their reputations in the industry as well as their experiences and hands on knowledge of the business, Lee and Rich started improving on the sales of these principals at retail operations in their area of representation. DVA started signing up other principals with their short, but extremely successful approach to growing both sales and category performance.
Why the tremendous and immediate success for their clients and retailers? Lee had spent the last 10 years as a Vice President at Ready Pac Produce in charge of sales, marketing, retail services and broker direction. Prior to that he had advanced through the ranks at retail, holding almost every position in the produce retail marketing and operations division, including high-level management positions at Ralphs Grocery Company, Gelsons and Big Bear Markets.
Rich had come up through the ranks in retail at El Rancho Markets, Hughes Family Markets and Ralphs Grocery Company in much the same way Lee did, holding various titles in all facets of produce marketing and operations and retired as Director of Produce from Ralphs. Both individuals had a wealth of knowledge and experience, not only on store operations, marketing, merchandising, buying and category management, but high level management and P&L responsibilities for those areas as well. The majority of their skills were developed by working directly with suppliers and brokers in their retail positions and with Lee’s extra sales experience during his tenure at Ready Pac.
They understood first-hand the successes and failures of both supply-side companies and of their sales representatives, and took that knowledge to give retailers and their suppliers an upper hand in selling their goods and services. Their reputations, relationships and skills provided a better way to achieve sales and category success.
Lee and Rich were the catalysts of this success story. They could not accomplish this by themselves primarily due to the fact that their representation was growing rapidly with new clients wanting to align with DVA. They both knew that future success would only be attainable with the addition of associates that equaled their own reputations, relationships, experience and knowledge in the industry.
Recruiting began, and in a short time DVA was working with Amanda Grillo from POM Wonderful, Bill Funo from Advantage Sales and Marketing and Veronica Velez-Maisano from Ready Pac. They also hired the Ready Pac Retail team to represent the DVA Brands for in-store representation and merchandising as they were also handling Ready Pac’s merchandising which was a DVA Client.
As time went on, DVA replaced the Ready Pac retail team with a team from Fresh Express and also secured Fresh Express/Chiquita as a new client. Sales momentum increased and with it more new clients and opportunities. DVA and Fresh Express came to an agreement for DVA to take over complete control of the renowned Fresh Express retail team which became the DVA Retail Team in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada. Eventually, DVA hired Dave Ackerman who retired from Vice President, Produce and Floral, Ralphs Grocery Company to help DVA with Sales and Marketing. Soon afterwards, Dave was put in charge of the DVA retail team in addition to his other efforts with DVA. DVA was now in charge of, arguably, the largest and most competent in-store retail team in the West.
In-house category management support was added to corporate retail offices to increase the effectiveness of DVA as the retail headquarters and sales growth and client base continued to expand rapidly. DVA was being asked again by retailers and potential clients to expand into other areas of retail, including Floral, Natural Foods, Service Deli and Bakery, Wall Deli, Meat and Grocery departments.
Amanda Grillo was given the task of incorporating this new business into DVA, and with some initial successes, DVA brought in Mary Cencich from Impact Sales and Marketing to help with this effort. At the same time Alex Corsaro, also from Impact, joined the DVA group to expand DVA’s reach into the Colorado, Kansas and Utah markets. Even more help was needed and Melanie Grayson, from Advantage Sales and Marketing came to DVA to help with the quickly growing, non-produce accounts. Cathy Lovitt was also added to the administration and customer service areas of DVA to assist with the overall effort of DVA.
Currently, DVA is working with over twenty-five sales and in-store retail associates in six western states and growth into other marketing areas and business segments are expected as part of the DVA Master Plan. Thanks to the vision of the partners, the achievement of all of the DVA associates, the support of the retail community and the confidence and support of DVA’s ever-growing client base, DVA has grown to become a power-house in the food industry and will continue to grow and provide effective representation and sales success for its clients and retailers, distributors and food service customers.
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Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Kansas & Colorado
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