the record delta - special section - wendlings

When I look back at all that has happened over the last 100 years, I can’t help but see a lot of my grandfather’s influence present in everything we’ve done. It inspires me to know that after a century, his vision and commitment to his customers are still our strengths, and continue to be an important part of my vision for this company as we move into the future.

A.F. Wendling’s commitment to providing the very best service to his customers is what has motivated us throughout the last 100 years. It’s what has driven us to innovate and find new ways to deliver excellence over three genera-tions. Through expanding our operation to offer thousands of restaurant quality products, and making the most of the latest technology to get the order right the first time, we have grown to be West Virginia’s largest independent, family owned foodservice distributor.

This year we’re commemorating our 100th anniversary by launching our Signature Steaks line. My grandfather started in 1913 by offer-

ing the best meats to his customers, and we’re continuing the tradition by offering Choice and Select cuts worthy of bearing his signature. We hope you’ll come by and see us to take one home for yourself, or feature them as an unforgettable addition to your restaurant’s menu.

I am grateful to those who have helped us reach this milestone. I look forward to build-ing on this 100 year legacy, and would like to thank my family, our staff, the community and our loyal customers. I know that it is because of you that my children will one day have the opportunity to continue in the tradition of pro-viding the very best, the way my grandfather always did… one customer at a time.

Chris WendlingPresident and CEOChris Wendling

One hundred years.

2 A.F. WENDLING’S —100TH ANNIVERSARY THE RECORD DELTA

A MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

By Amanda Hayes Senior Staff Writer

Hard work, innovative thinking and a dogged determination to succeed are the tenets on which

a local family-owned business has operated for 100 years.

As A.F. Wendling’s celebrates a century of food service this year, family members recall the sacrifices and successes they have had along the way.

From A.F. Wendling, the company’s founder, to son Fred Wendling to grandson Chris Wendling, three generations of the fam-ily have endured their own struggles as they built a company based on providing quality customer service with a small-town feel.

Fred and his brother John grew up work-ing with his father after the elder Wendling restarted the business in Charleston following the Great Depression and World War II. They helped build the business from the ground up.

“We worked after school,” Fred said. “We got out at noon when I was in high school. If you had to work, you got out early. The rest of my schooling was working and learning the business. I still graduated.”

Fred Wendling flirted with other businesses, but he always returned.

“Once or twice, I sold insurance, and I worked with Kroger for a while,” he said.

But Fred came back to the business for good to become the second generation at the head of A.F. Wendling’s company.

“We took it over in 1965, and my dad retired,” he said.

John and Fred split the business. John stayed in the southern West Virginia market and Fred moved north, keeping the A.F. Wendling name, while John went with his initials — J.A. Wendling.

“My brother and I had worked together and we had been together all of our life,” Fred said. “But it was just an opportunity to expand.”

Over the years, Fred worked the northern West Virginia area buying out businesses before settling in Buckhannon.

It seems fitting that Karen Wendling met her future husband at a food show.

“I was cooking in the Upshur County School System,” she said. “He did a food show in Clarksburg that was part of our in-service.”

“He was divorced and I was in the process,” she said. “Fred asked one of the cooks about

me, and we ended up dating.” “We were married the next January. I just

married my work then,” she said with a laugh. “He worked on the road most of the time and I was inside all the years.”

Karen ended her employment with the school system and began doing payroll for A.F. Wendling. She quickly learned about a lot of different facets of the business.

“It still had to do with food, but it was something different,” she said.

Betty Puffenbarger — then the food direc-tor for Upshur County Schools and Karen’s former boss — was one of the people that Karen got to sell to.

“I was on the other side of the table selling to her,” Karen said.

At the time, the business was in Mount Clare. The Wendlings lived in Clarksburg when they were first married.

Later, the business and the family moved back to Buckhannon, with Fred keeping up a blistering pace.

“He would work all day selling, come in and change clothes, then go help them in the warehouse,” Karen said. “Every time someone left, or another position needed filled, that’s what I did.”

Today, Karen is the secretary and treasurer, handling the accounting, which is then sent

on to a CPA. Since 1995, Fred and Karen’s son, Chris,

has taken a more active role in the company. He is now the president and CEO.

“For years, it was Fred, and then Fred and I had the overall say, and now Chris does and we have our jobs with him,” Karen said. “It’s for the better. I could see that we needed to advance, especially with technology. Chris is in that generation. I think it’s been great for the business.”

So, how long do Fred and Karen Wendling plan to stay involved in the family business?

“Fred will be 75 on his birthday, and he still sells on the road,” Karen said. “I’ve always said as long as I have my health, I would enjoy still working.”

Chris grew up in the family business. He would come to work with his mom while still a baby and spend his time after school doing his homework in the office while also helping wait on customers.

For Karen, seeing her son grow up in the family business and stay involved has been very special.

“I always had goals for Chris,” she said. “The first was I wanted to keep him in the same school system so he would go all the way through with his friends. Second, I always hoped he would marry someone that would be involved in the family business with him, like I was with Fred.”

“It’s hard with the hours that we put in if you are not on the same level,” she said.

Compared to those early years, Karen said she feels the new generation of Wendlings has it a lot better.

“I always thought about how hard that we had it compared to Chris,” she said. “That’s what you worked for, for your kids and grand-kids to have it easier than you did.”

Karen said in the early years there was a lot of difficulty in separating business and home life — just by the close proximity from the business to the home.

“The phone rang in our house for years,” she said. “I took orders in the evenings. But we knew that was our livelihood. If I was busy with someone, I would get their name and number and call them back.”

“We always worked hard, but when we had time we had quality time,” she said. “[Fred] would lay down in the office and rest in be-tween, then he would come home and get a few hours sleep and start again the next week.”

A.F. WENDLING’S —100TH ANNIVERSARY 3THE RECORD DELTA

WENDLINGTHE FAMILY BEHIND THE BUSINESS

Founder A.F. WENDLING


“Now Chris has about three times the employees we had,” she said. “He can delegate.”

But with all the struggles and sacrifices to make it this long and keep a 100-year-old business going, Karen said she sees the investment paying off.

“It’s been hard; it’s been fun,” she said. “It’s all been worthwhile. I can see my son being involved in the business, and hopefully before I pass my grand-kids will be involved.”

A lot of things have advanced over the years. In the 1990s, Fred and Karen began talking about retiring and selling the busi-

ness, but Chris told his parents he wanted to take it over. Fred said, “He was 19 then — he’s been running it since he was 20. He has

really brought it along good.” But it comes to no surprise to Fred, who saw something in his son from an early age. “He came to me when he was 16 and said he wanted to buy a used truck,” he

said. “I told him he had to make some money if he wanted something. And he did. “He had to work for it. That was the way I was brought up and the way I brought

him up.” Chris has a business head, but he also loves the business, just like his parents,

according to Fred. And having that heart for the business is important. “I love what I’m doing,” Fred Wendling said. “I’m 75 years old, but I still like

getting up and going to work every morning.” Chris now heads the company and has seen some of the biggest growth come

under his leadership. But his earliest years spent at the company — not just with his parents, but

in the warehouse and out in the field — stick with him. “I got to see a lot of the different culture,” he said. “I picked up a big vocabu-

lary – some good and some bad. It was the experience and awe of being able to be involved. You learn different things from different people. Dad would show me how to do something, and it was kind of neat to get to experience it all.”

Young Chris Wendling in the meat shop with his father, Fred.

To Chris and all the Wendling’s team:Congratulations on 100 years of business,and being a business leader in our community

Q & ATOM O’NEILL & ASSOCIATESA T T O R N E Y S A T L A W

Coal, Oil and Gas Title Excellence304-460-2523 • [email protected]


Chris said his favorite aspect was working in the meat shop, but he wasn’t always so sure that he would carry on the family business, showing an interest in other fields.

“I always wanted to be a scientist,” he said. “That all changed. I found out I wasn’t smart enough.”

But as Chris put the brakes on a childhood dream in his teenage years, he fo-cused instead on something that was right in front of him — a family-run business.

“It was the heritage — listening to the stories about what my grandfather did, seeing what my dad did. I think that was a big change in my life,” he said. “Knowing all they did and to have something that they had made, that I could change and make my own.”

Chris never met his grandfather — A.F. Wendling died the year before he was born — but he came to know him through the stories that he heard from his dad and other family members.

That planted a seed that would grow as Chris carried on the family business into a third generation.

Chris quickly found that while he may not have had a science-oriented brain, he did have a business-oriented brain.

“As soon as I graduated high school, the night shift guy quit and I jumped in,” he said. “I went to school that fall, but then one of the guys that did bids in the office left and I had to start doing bids too.

“Those two things are what really sucked me into the company,” he said. “I was just able to take charge of it, and that was the first step I took into building the business.”

What Chris discovered is that each department is like its own business. “You have to carry your own,” he said. And so Chris carried his own, assuming more and more responsibility as

places opened up in the company. Today, Chris oversees a company that includes his wife, Charity; his parents;

and his brother, Steve. Chris is pictured with his parents, Karen and Fred Wendling.

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J.A. Wendling remained in Charleston until 2007. Second generation owner Fred Wendling

Pictures line the walls of the Wendling offices, from the earliest pictures available of A.F. Wendling to the second generation of the company and photos of Chris playing in the warehouse.

“The heritage of what my grandfather started, it was something that he accomplished through his life,” he said. “He sacrificed to pass it on to my dad. I feel obligated — we all feel obligated — to take it on and carry it on to the next phase.”

And with his wife working in an office down the hall, do they ever bring their work home with them?

“When we get home, we very seldom talk about work,” he said. “You have to run it like a light switch. Either it’s on or it’s off.”

Charity Wendling joined the company when she married Chris. She is now the vice president of marketing.

Charity said she had no problems fitting into the family-run and owned company.

“It was wonderful from the start,” she said. “Everyone here is family, and that’s the way we treat each other.”

When it comes to Chris and Charity Wendling’s kids, they too are growing up in the company, just like Chris and Steve and Fred and John before them.

“I really hope they will be the fourth genera-tion to carry on some day,” Chris said. “I would be very proud of that. As I see them growing up, I try to place in my head what department they would be in.”

But Chris also recognizes how times have changed.

Gone are the days when he would run “all over the place” or “ride his big wheel on the warehouse floor.”

“They don’t have the same experience I had,” he said. “I was all over the place when

I was younger. There wasn’t as much danger then. You can’t let them do that now.”

So, Chris said he has found ways to involve the kids in other aspects of the business — bringing them in on a Saturday morning, or taking them to special events. Before the kids started school, Charity would bring them into the office with her.

“You have to teach them a different way,” Chris said.

And if the kids do get involved in the com-pany when they are older?

“I think my kids will be smarter at business than I am,” he said. “That’s the way it should be. They should be smarter and they should have their own ideas too.”

Even with all the success Chris has seen in his years running Wendling’s — the growth, the expansion, the renovations — he still has an eye on what’s next for the 100-year-old company.

“I’m proud of the road that I’m on, but I’m not exactly where I want to be,” he said. “There’s so much that I still want to accomplish in life.”

Steve Wendling is Fred’s son and Chris’s older brother. He is a buyer for the family company and does “whatever has to be done.”

Like Chris, Steve’s memories date back to early childhood.

“My youngest memories are when I used to go with my grandfather,” he said. “He would go buy cattle to get slaughtered and sell the beef. Then, I used to go with my dad too. We used to peddle off the truck. We didn’t go out and take orders like we do now.”

But that would soon change. “When we started sending sales reps out to

get the customer orders, I used to go with my dad to do that as well,” Steve said. “Then, when I was in the fifth grade, I used to go over to the warehouse. I would hang out with the guys and

try to help them.” When the Wendlings moved up from

Charleston, they lived beside the old warehouse, so Steve didn’t have far to go.

“Then the next one was built practically right beside the other,” he said. “It was an existing building that we added on to. It used to be Mon Power.”

When Steve was 13, he was put on the company payroll.

“I worked every summer, a lot of weekends and most holidays,” he said. “I went to college for a little bit and still worked summers, week-ends and holidays.”

Then, Steve came back to work full time with the company, in the warehouse pulling orders, loading trucks, delivering items and buying products.

“Pretty much what I do now,” he said. “I worked in the meat processing plant. It’s a small family company, so you pretty much have to know everybody and do everything.”

Steve has two sons who come to the company on weekends with their dad.

“My older one likes to come here and hang out,” he said.

So, are they interested in the family business? “They both seem to be interested at times,

and at other times they talk about other things,” he said. “If that’s what they want to do, that’s fine by me.”

And what is it like working with family? “We all get along pretty good,” Steve said.

“We’re very competitive and we probably get on each other more than we would other people. We push each other. We are more critical of each other than what we would be with a normal employee. We expect more out of family, and everybody pushes themselves to do better.”


MILESTONES

1913 — Founder Albert F. Wendling begins delivering fresh meats at age 13 in Charleston, W.Va. Business fails during Great Depression, but is resur-rected by A.F. Wendling behind redou-bled efforts and drive to succeed.

1953 — Albert takes on a partner, George Fleshman, who worked for D.T. Craig.

Aug. 11, 1954 — The company is in-corporated at 100 Welch St., Charles-ton, W.Va. with stockholders being A.F. Wendling, Hattamena Wendling and George Fleshman.

May 18, 1959 — A.F. Wendling buys George Fleshman’s stock to have 100 percent ownership. During Albert Wendling’s reign, he acquired busi-nesses owned by D.T. Craig, Ronald Rader, Freddy Hunter and Shinglers.

April 5, 1965 — Albert hands over the reins of the company to sons Fred and John. Albert gave his shares to Hattame-na, Fred, John and Herbert Wendling.

1966-67 — Fred and John acquire John Ackery, who owned Capital Meats.

April 10, 1968 — Company purchas-es property at 6308 MacCorkle Ave., Charleston for a better, more modern location.

May 1969 — Fred Wendling expands the business north by acquiring Mountain Foods at 176 Wood St. in Buckhannon, W.Va., and John remains in the southern market at 6308 MacCorkle Ave. in Charleston.

Sept. 30, 1971 — Hattamena Wendling gives her stock to sons John, Fred and Herbert.

April 13, 1974 — The Monongahela Power building is purchased in Buck-hannon to expand at 176 Wood St.

June 4, 1974 — Mt. Clare Provision Co. is acquired in Mt. Clare, W.Va. for a second location in the northern territory.

Aug. 8, 1975 — Started expansion on Monongahela Power building at 176 Wood St., Buckhannon.

Oct. 1975 — John and Fred acquire shares from Herbert Wendling to have all the shares of the corporation.

Oct. 1975 — Albert F. Wendling dies at the age of 75, after 50 years in the business.

June 28, 1976 — The A.F. Wendling Co. splits into two separate companies. A.F. Wendling Inc. remains at 176 Wood St., Buckhannon, and a new corporation formed as J.A. Wendling Inc. remains at 6308 MacCorkle Ave, Charleston.


MILESTONES

Oct. 1976 — The Buckhannon loca-tion increases to a 27,000 sq. ft. facility at 176 Wood St. and the location at Mt. Clare closed in order to have every-thing in one location.

1983 — Middletown Foods in Fairmont, W.Va. is acquired by A.F. Wendling, Inc.

1992 — A.F. Wendling Inc. acquires Central West Virginia Foods in Clarks-burg, W.Va.

1998 — Christopher Wendling takes over the reins of the business from fa-ther Fred Wendling.

Nov. 8, 2003 — A.F. Wendling Inc. ac-quires Atkinson Distributors in Beckley, W.Va.

Oct. 2005 — A.F. Wendling receives an Appalachian Regional Commission Grant for new warehouse expansion.

2006 — Expansion started on property purchased at Tennerton, W.Va.

March 14, 2006 — Majority stock goes to Christopher Wendling of the third generation.

Jan. 2007 — Completion of a new 62,000 sq. ft. office and warehouse lo-cation at Tennerton (old Ames building) at 100 Wendling Plaza, Buckhannon. The location at 176 Wood St. is closed.

March 2007 — A.F. Wendling Inc. buys out J.A. Wendling Inc.

June 20, 2007 — Grand opening for new location at 100 Wendling Plaza, Buckhannon.

Feb. 18, 2008 — A.F. Wendling acquires Witmer Foods in LaVale, Md.

May 23, 2008 — A retail store outlet opens at 100, Wendling Plaza, Buckhannon.

2009 — Three divisions of the corpo-ration are created:* Pierfresh Premium Seafood* Supply Works non-foods* A.F. Wendling Signature Meats

April 2011 — The retail outlet at 100 Wendling Plaza is expanded and named A.F. Wendling’s Market.

2013 — The company celebrates 100 years in business with the third generation owner at the reins.

to

on 100 years of service from



Across the generations — A.F. Wendling [portrait] and third generation owner Chris Wendling.


By Amanda HayesSenior Staff Writer

Focused on the present and with an eye on the future, A.F. Wendling company is also mindful of its

storied past that dates back 100 years. Albert Wendling, the company’s founder

and family patriarch, started a business delivering fresh meats at the age of 13 in Charleston, W.Va.

Albert’s son, Fred, said his father bought a hog, butchered it and began peddling the meat. Before the days of refrigerated trucks, A.F. Wendling cut ice chunks from the river to keep the meats cool and fresh for customers.

As Albert grew older and expanded his business, he got help from several youngsters including Harold ‘Buck’ Hughes.

“He had me and my brother to work around the place and help him out,” he said. “He had quite a few hogs.”

“He always made sure that you did your job,” he said. “He was strict on that. If he told you to do something, he expected it to be done.”

From those humble beginnings arose the largest family-owned food service business in West Virginia.

Fred Wendling, the eldest son of Albert and Hattamena, remembers when his father restarted the business in the 1940s.

It had failed during the Great Depression as many businesses did, but was resurrected in the renewed spirit of post-World War II life in America.

As a child, Fred helped his father with

the business, taking meat orders and mak-ing deliveries.

“In those days, you had little stores,” he said. “Most people bought their meat off a meat company, their produce off a produce company and so on. Everyone specialized in one item. Now, we have everything.”

Transportation was also a challenge be-cause the food could only go so far and be kept fresh with ice.

“The furthest route was probably 50 miles at the most from the office,” he said. “You went from Charleston to Clendenin and that was a day’s route. Then from Charleston to Walton and that was another day’s route.”

Before the days when all homes had re-frigeration, people often rented meat lockers.

“Some people didn’t have a lot of refrig-eration, so we would store it for them,” Fred said. “We kept it frozen and they would come by and pick up what they wanted.”

Fred remembers the company’s first truck, a 1950 Dodge, which he used when he migrated north.

In 1953, Albert Wendling took on a partner, George Fleshman, and the company became incorporated the next year.

On May 18, 1959, Wendling bought out Fleshman’s stock to have 100 percent ownership of the company.

During this time, he also began the com-pany’s business growth strategy, acquiring other businesses.

By April 5, 1965, at the age of 65, Albert was ready to retire and turned the company over to sons Fred and John.

Four years later, A.F. Wendling acquired Mountain Foods at 176 Wood St. in Buck-

hannon. The company then purchased Mt. Clare

Provision Co. and later that summer started expansion on the old Monongahela Power building in Buckhannon.

In June 1976, the two brothers, Fred and John, split the company to continue growing all over the state.

Fred kept the A.F. Wendling name as he expanded territory north, while John remained in Charleston handling the south-ern half of the state under the name J.A. Wendling.

The acquisitions continued as A.F. Wendling picked up Middletown Foods in Fairmont and Central West Virginia Foods in Clarksburg.

But it wasn’t all positive in those early years. When Fred met his second wife, Karen, the company was in severe financial trouble due to the economy and landed in bankruptcy court.

“The bank was trying to close me up,” he said.

But Fred said he told the truth in the hear-ing when he was asked why the company was floundering.

“Poor management,” Fred said. “He said, ‘You are the first guy that ever told the truth.’ But I did. I wasn’t really watching what I should have been doing. But we got out of it.

“We ended up paying them down.”And slowly, things began to turn around. “Once we paid that big Chapter 11 off,

the economy changed,” Fred said. “People started eating out again. It was a big change.”

Soon, a third generation would be leading the way at Wendling’s.

100 YEARSWENDLING’S OVER THE LAST CENTURY

to theWendling Family and

AF Wendling Food Service on

100 years of service to our community and state.

Congratulations Stop by for the best hot dogs in town!Classic Favorites

Hot DogsBBQ Pork Sandwich

Homemade dessert

New Menu ItemsWings Regular BBQ or HOT

Jalapeno and cheddar sausage sandwich


In 1998, at 19 years of age, Chris Wendling took a more active role in the family business. He soon took over for his father, Fred, and continued the busi-ness strategy of acquisitions — taking in Atkinson Distributors in Beckley, buying out J.A. Wendling in 2007 and acquiring Witmer Foods in 2008.

As Chris began looking at the future, he knew the cramped quarters on Wood Street were not working any longer.

“I knew we were being constricted by the space that we had,” Chris said. “We were getting squeezed to do more with less. We had to touch boxes six times, and you should only touch them once or twice at the most.”

More efficiency in the warehouse was something that Chris knew was needed from his stint on the night shift.

“That is the first thing I looked at,” he said. “We can’t do this four times. We have to do it one time to be efficient.”

But space inside the Wood Street ware-house was nonexistent.

“I knew to be able to do that, I had to add on to what we had, or start over from scratch,” he said. “We started over from scratch and built what we needed.”

Wendling’s pursued a program through the Appalachian Regional Commission that enabled them to purchase the former Ame’s Plaza in Tennerton and turn it into Wendling Plaza. One end of the plaza was remodeled into a 62,000 square foot warehouse that met the company’s needs.

Chris has also worked to bring the com-pany into the 20th century, and now into the 21st century, as new technologies evolved.

Karen Wendling, Chris’s mother, recalled the days before technology took off.

“We went from doing price books on the weekends — we would print off the sheets

to do the price books — and now everything is in the laptops,” she said. “I handwrote the special sheets on the weekend for the salesmen to give out the next week. Now, everything is electronic.”

She remembered the first computer the business got for the office and then introduc-ing the salesmen to the computer system.

“They would take the orders that were put into the machine and then would print the sheets,” she said. “That’s how we started, but it kept advancing and now they carry their own computers.”

Through trial and error, Chris has learned what works and what doesn’t in technology.

“We would be looking for product in the morning and we knew the computer said we had it,” he said. “That’s where we got into bar coding and BIN location. Everything is tracked now.”

“You have to watch technology,” he said. “You have to weed through it, and if it requires me to run around the car 10 times before I start it, then it is not worth it. You have to have something that’s still efficient. So, technology is great, but you have to manage it.”

“You’re learning every day,” he said. “You have to learn from your mistakes and you have to gain from your knowledge.”

Chris is quick to point out that he didn’t get any easy breaks growing up as the son of the company’s owner.

“Dad was harder on me than he was on the other employees,” he said. “But he used those times to teach me that there is no mistake that happens in this company that is not my fault. Either I didn’t give them the right tool or tell them the right instructions. No matter what happens, it’s always your responsibility because you can make it better.”

And those are lessons that the third-

generation owner has carried with him as he leads the company started by his grandfather.

“We had grown too fast,” Chris said. “We were always looking and waiting for every-thing to catch up. I knew that was eventually going to cause a problem. I wanted to change things, because it was so hard to catch up.”

So, as Chris caught his own breath from all the changes that were taking place, he took another look at what was missing or could be enhanced.

He began a stricter emphasis on safety. “If you surround your employees by

safety, they think safety,” he said. Each year, the employees gather for a

safety rodeo that puts them to the test. The focus is on being efficient while still main-taining safe procedures.

Chris also wanted to solve another prob-lem — the warehouse was not a place where customers could easily get what they needed themselves.

“The problem was people wanted to come to the office and purchase items off the shelf,” he said. “It was two interruptions. That customer would have to wait and the other person would have to find what was needed. When we came up here, we had the extra space.”

So A.F. Wendling’s opened up a retail store at the plaza.

“We can’t display all 8,000 items,” Chris said. “But we talk to people and see what they want and pick out some items for the cash and carry store.”

“People in retail want to see what they purchase,” he said. “It’s easier to do that over there (in the cash and carry store adjacent to the warehouse).”

The retail outlet was expanded and renamed A.F. Wendling’s Market in 2011.

Next, Chris went back to the beginning

Wendling’s Wood Street warehouse 1975. Building increased to 27,000 square feet in 1976.

Country Pure Foods is one of the nation’s largest independent processors of juices, drinks and nectars for the Foodservice,

Retail and Contract Manufacturing segments

Congratulations to Wendling’s for 100 years of service from

Congratulations A.F. Wendlings for

100 years of service!


Work begins on 100 Wendling Plaza — the current home to A.F. Wendling’s Foodservice.

of the company, where it’s sole focus was on meat, and moved the meat shop from Wood Street to Wendling Plaza.

“We remodeled the old Pizza Hut and [the meat shop] was the last thing that we brought up here,” he said.

Three divisions of the corporation — Pierfresh Premium Seafood, Supply Works and A.F. Wendling Signature Meats — were created in 2009, allowing the company to expand even more.

But even though A.F. Wendling’s has settled in to its home, Chris is always looking into the future but learning from the lessons from years past.

“Years ago, we smoked ham and bacon — up until the 1980s,” he said. “We still have my grandfather’s recipes. It’s something different you can’t find anywhere else.”

And that is Chris Wendling’s next project. “I never give up on anything,” he said.

“Sometimes it gets me into trouble, not giv-ing up, and sometimes it’s been a success.”

But through it all, Chris, like his father and grandfather before him, has never let his growing pains get in the way of what A.F. Wendling’s has always been about — giv-ing people service, one customer at a time.

“They want that down-to-earth treat-ment,” Chris said.

“That’s been a success.”


FAMILY PHOTOS

Standing tall at the entrance to Wendling Plaza.

The Wendling family with Senator Joe Manchin.

Karen, Fred, Chris and Charity Wendling.

Caitlyn, Chris and Colton Wendling

The ‘sausage cutting’ to officially open Wendling Plaza.

The staff at A.F. Wendling’s Foodservice.

A direct Importer, specializing in Canned Goods / Dry Grocery Goods such as Olives, Artichokes, Peppers, Fruits, Vegetables,

Oils & Vinegars, and a Manufacturer of a Full Line of Spices, Herbs & Seasonings.

Also, more than 20 years experience as a Re-Distributor of manydomestic Products and National Brands.

Located in Edison, NJ 08820

Atlantic Beverage Co.Inc. is pleased to congratulate A.F. Wendling’s

on their 100th anniversary as West Virginia’s Largest Family - Owned

Independent Food Service Distributor.

Congratulations WendlingsFor 100 years of service

Above is Wendling’s annual food show held at Canaan Valley Resort in Davis, W.Va. Wendling’s has the show every May and en-courages all of their customers to attend. Each year over 75 vendors set up booths to showcase their items for all of Wendling’s customers. For 2013, the food show theme will be based on Wendling’s 100th Anniversary. Pictured at left, Wendling’s warehouse in action.


Congratulations A.F. Wendling for 100 years in business!


New pork curing plant opened at Locker Service

REPRINT FROM DEC. 2, 1949 BUCKHANNON RECORD PAGE AT LEFT — The most modern pork curing plant in operation in West Virginia and nearby states has been opened as an additional unit to the Billingsley Locker Service on Wood Street.

The new addition is about forty feet square and is divided into a curing room which is capable of handling 200,000 pounds of cured meats, a processing room and a smoke house.

Above (in page at left) is a view of one section of the curing room where the

temperature is controlled to remain at 38 to 40 degrees.

Allen “Red” Mackey, manager of the pork curing division, is shown here plac-ing some pieces of bacon on the curing shelves along with hundreds of other bacons, hams and shoulders.

The meat for the processing plant is brought in by farmers and some com-mercial operators from Upshur and many nearby counties.

In the picture to the left, Mr. Mackey is shown receiving and weighing an order of hams. At the right Robert Arnold is shown

curing some hams which have previously been cooled to the same temperature as the preparation which is used in the curing.

The picture at the bottom, left, shows a smoking cabinet filled ready for 72 hours of hickory smoking. This and another smoke cabinet each hold 30 hams. The smoke house directly behind Mr. Arnold, holds 175 hams. Mr. Mackey is shown in this picture stirring the vat in which lard is rendered.

The owners of this modern processing plant are Paul G. Billingsley of Morgantown and Harry D. Billingsley of Buckhannon.

A 1975 food show at Liberty High School in Harrison County. Fred Wendling is pictured at right. Chris Wendling, age 4, helps in the meat shop.


(304) 472-9328Rt. 20 North Buckhannon

Congratulations A.F. Wendling’s

4 Traders Alley Buckhannon

472-7222

22 N. Kanawha St.Buckhannon304-460-7326

Congratulations on 100 years

of service!

Aladdin Food Management

at WV Wesleyan

College

Congratulates A.F.

Wendling’s!

194 Shadow DriveRock Cave, WV

Bridgeport Hill Rd304-622-9411

Upshur County Fair Association

P.O. Box 122Rock Cave, WV

Spuds BBQ

Lewisburg, WV

400 Interstate North Parkway Suite 1100Atlanta, GA 30339

Congratulates A.F. Wendling’s on 100 years of service to the community!

Congratulations A.F. Wendling’s!

P.O. Box 442, 16 S. Kanawha St.Buckhannon, WV

www.buchamber.com

Congratulates A.F. Wendling’s!

(304) 472-8845

6438 Appalachian Hwy Davis, WV 26260

(304) 866-4418

Medallion Restaurant

CongratulationsFrom

7 S Main StreetPhilippi, WV

304-457-3463

CongratulationsA.F. Wendling’son 100 years of

service from

2B Clarksburg RoadBuckhannon, WV 26201

Premier Beef & PoultryDelicacies Since 1954


Albert F. Wendling (right) surveys his meat cutting operation.

Call A.F. Wendling’s for more information (304) 472-5500


Albert F. Wendling (right) with one of his hogs.

Contact us for all of your ice cream, frozen beverage equipment and grill needs.

toWendling Food Service

on 100 years of servicefrom


Plant is Hog Heaven to Lovers of Smoke Meat

DEC. 31, 1981 — The A.F. Wendling Co. plant in Buckhannon is hog heaven to lovers of smoked ham and bacon.

During the butchering season, which runs from around thanksgiving to the end of the year, about 5,000 pounds of ham and bacon is cured each week.

Wendling, a venerable firm that got its start in Charleston in 1913, takes in home-butchered hams and slabs of bacon and gives them that special salt-cured and hickory-smoked touch.

The best time to visit the Wendling smokehouse is just before mealtime, the better to savor the sight and aroma of a room full of hams and bacon being soaked in hickory sawdust smoke.

The maitre d’ of the smokehouse is Red Mackey, a Buckhannon native who, it seems, began smoking hams and bacon back about the time the Chinese discov-ered pork tastes better when it’s cooked.

Mackey, who is now semi-retired and has turned the smokehouse over to a protégé, Cecil Casto, has been here since 1947. At that time, the business was owned by Billingsley Locker Service. That firm gave way to Wendling in 1969, but Mackey stayed on.

The curing process, as lovingly described by Mackey, begins with a thorough chilling of the meat in a cooler where the ideal temperature is 38 degrees.

From that North Polish environment, the hams are brought out to receive an injection of salt brine as a preservative. In custom curing, the amount of brine equals 10 percent of the ham’s weight, Mackey pointed out.

Then comes a rubdown with salt and

a trip back to the cooler for 15-day cur-ing period.

The grand touch following that is a five to seven-day stay in the smoking cabinet. “The hickory smoke is what gives the hams their flavor,” said Mackey, his mouth watering.

Wendling also dry cures hams, which is a process similar to that followed by individuals who cure hams at home. A lesser amount of salt brine is used – equal to only three percent of the ham’s weight and there is more rubbing with salt and more time spent in the curing cooler.

Dry cured hams last a little longer, are a little saltier and Mackey believes, a little tastier. All bacon is dry cured.

Wendling cures and sells its own hams, in addition to curing them for other people. But owner Fred Wendling said demand has already outstripped supply this holiday season.

Wendling’s father, A.F. Wendling, began selling meat in Charleston when he was 13 years old. He bought a hog, butchered it and peddled the meat door to door in a basket. He was forced out of business during the Depression, but returned following the end of World War II.

Two of A.F. Wendling’s sons, Fred and John, are still in the meat business, Fred at Buckhannon and John in Charleston.

Fred’s Buckhannon business is a food service that includes selling meats, canned goods and frozen foods to stores, restaurants, hotels, schools, institutions, etc. The curing of hams and bacons is seasonal of course, and right now is booming. And very aromatic.


WORLD EVENTS

Suffragettes demonstrate in London and Washington, D.C.

London peace treaty partitions most of European Turkey among the victors of fi rst

Balkan War.

In second Balkan war, Bulgaria attacks Serbia and Greece and is defeated after

Romania intervenes and Turks recapture Adrianople (June).

U.S. EVENTS

Garment workers strike in New York and Boston; win pay raises and reduced hours.

Sixteenth Amendment (income tax) and 17th (popular election of U.S. senators) adopted.

Bill creating U.S. Federal Reserve System becomes law.

Woodrow Wilson becomes 28th U.S. President.

Armory Show in New York introduces Americans to European modern art as well as

the American Ashcan School.

STATISTICS

President: Woodrow WilsonVice President: Thomas R. Marshall

U.S. Population: 97,225,000

Federal spending: $0.72 billionConsumer Price Index: 9.9Unemployment: 4.3 percent

Cost of a fi rst-class stamp: $0.02

SPORTS

World SeriesPhiladelphia A’s d. NY Giants (4-1)

Stanley CupQuebec Bulldogs

NCAA Football ChampionsHarvard (9-0-0)

WimbledonWomen: Dorothea Chambers d. R. McNair

Men: Tony Wilding d. M. McLoughlinKentucky Derby Champion

Donerail

ENTERTAINMENT

Darktown Follies opens in Harlem and helps to make Harlem a black cultural center.

Billboard magazine publishes a list of the most popular vaudeville songs. It’s the prede-

cessor to their trademark charts.

First crossword puzzle appears in the New York World.

1913The world in

• 724-679-9260


Wendling’s bold, new trailer decals were featured at their an-nual safety rodeo.

Carefully parked by an expert delivery specialist

Prizes awarded for skill and safety

Warehouse staff ready to compete for safety and efficiency


EVOLUTION OF THE TRUCK

Wendling’s new trailers debut at the 71st Annual Strawberry Festival.

One of Wendling’s first delivery vehicles. 1964 Dodge D-500

A Wendling’s box truck A tandem trailer

By Amanda HayesSenior Staff Writer

From the days of peddling meat by wagon around the Charleston area to a fleet of company trucks that take

food orders across West Virginia and into surrounding states, a local company contin-ues to go the extra mile for its clientele, “one customer at a time.”

A.F. Wendling is celebrating 100 years of service this year and reflecting back on the values that have built the company into the largest independent family-owned and oper-ated food service distributor in West Virginia.

Under the leadership of president Chris Wendling, the company has expanded both its employee-base and its facilities in recent years. It draws from a customer base in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

But it is right here in Buckhannon, home base for the company since Chris Wendling’s father, Fred, settled here in the 1970s, that the company has had a major impact on the local economy.

Steve Foster, executive director of the Upshur County Development Authority, pointed to the company’s purchase and invest-ment into what is now Wendling Plaza.

“They have basically recycled what was a vacant shopping center into a fully-used facil-ity,” Foster said. “They source an awful lot of their fuel procurements locally.”

“Wendling’s has also opened up a retail operation which allows a lot of volunteer organizations to buy materials in bulk,” he said. “They have grown from 20 to over 60 people. Their gross sales have increased by

five times.”A.F. Wendling’s growth has not changed

the company’s mission of providing top qual-ity service.

Diane Kimble organizes a Wednesday night church and community dinner at Chapel Hill United Methodist Church.

At first, the dinner attracted only church members, but as word spread, the church found itself opening its doors to the com-munity at large and providing a warm meal to the degenerate or just the lonely. People come for a hot meal and company and break bread. There is no set cost, but people donate what they can in an offering plate at the start of the meal line.

Now in its seventh year, the community meal is a staple, being postponed only a few times a year — most notably this past year when Chapel Hill UMC was being used as a shelter following the June 29 derecho and Oct. 29 Superstorm Sandy.

For Kimble, being able to purchase items for the dinner from A.F. Wendling’s offers

convenience and quality together. “It helps because at Wendling’s we can get

it in bulk,” she said. “For example, when we serve green beans, all I need is eight big cans instead of 50 small ones. The convenience of the large quantity is a plus.”

Since the dinner began, Wendling’s has also opened its “cash and carry” market, which makes it easy for those times when only a small quantity is needed to fill in for the dinner.

“I really like it now because I can go to the cash and carry and I can get one can at a time, whereas before you could only get things in a half-case or a whole case,” she said.

“I can also go and look at their meat in the meat case and pick out what I need. I have never gotten any meat there that was not excellent,” she said. “It’s all very good. The prices on their meat are really good.”

Foster said A.F. Wendling’s continues to invest in activities by supporting various volunteer and charitable organizations, such as the Shriners and the West Virginia Straw-berry Festival.

From one family business to another,

to

-Gehl’s Foods

on 100 years in the food industry.

Congratulations toA. F. Wendling Food Service

Congratulations toA. F. Wendling Food Service

on 100 years of excellence in service to thecommunity and the food service industry.It has been a pleasure working with you

for the past forty years.


LOCAL IMPACTWENDLING’S IS A BIG PART OF BUCKHANNON


In addition, Chris Wendling, the company’s third-generation owner, has been named to the “Generation Next: 40 Under 40” by the State Journal. This award honors those individuals under age 40 who are making a difference in both their businesses and communities.

A.F. Wendling’s now employs more than 60 employees who live in Buckhannon and the surround-ing area, making contributions of their own.

Wayne Ringer has worked for A.F. Wendling for 32 years. Born in Buckhannon, he came back to the area in 1978 and began work with the company when it was on Wood Street.

Ringer retired five years ago as a buyer, but when his wife died, he wanted something to busy himself.

So, he came back.

Today, Ringer works part time as a buyer, a job that he still loves.

“You get to interact with a lot of different people,” he said. “If you don’t like to deal with people, this is the wrong business to be in.”

Through the company’s per-severance, Ringer has seen major growth during his time and said he is proud to be a part of A.F. Wendling.

Another long-time employee, Jim McIe, started out on the night shift 17 years ago.

“I worked in the freezer pick-ing orders and loading trucks,” McIe said.

Today, McIe is the transporta-tion and logistics supervisor and said he stayed with the company for the opportunities to advance.

“The Wendlings are great people to work for,” he said. “I have all the respect in the world for them.”

”““The Wendlings are great people to work for.

I have all the respect in the world for them.” —Jim McIe, Transportation and Logistics Supervisor

Showcasing Wendling’s own Della Grande Italian Sausage.


Wendlings

the record delta - special section - wendlings

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