The Bell-View History.

            The company was born is 1930 on the North Side of Pittsburgh. The original founders were Robert Lee, Edward Thompson and Hugh Fawcett. Back in the thirties many business struggled to survive the great depression. Fortunately, Bell-View survived the Great Depression and many wars. Many of the owners are veterans who served their country with pride and honor.

            During the early years Salesman traveled from corner store to mom and pops by the street car or train. Back then we sold product by the single unit, half case, full case or barrel. The fact was we were very happy to get any order. Bell-View produced a lot of product for the government during those lean years to feed the troops. All people struggled and sacrificed for the country’s freedom and survival.

            In 1948 the company was officially incorporated as the Lee Thompson & Fawcett Co. That’s when the fun started. The company was moved in 1948 to its current location from the North Side of Pittsburgh to an old lumberyard in the tiny borough of Penn, Pa. During that period three separate facilities produced pickles, relish, peppers, olives, jams, jellies, marmalade, preserves, syrup, maraschino cherries and mustard.

            During this entire time our family worked diligently to produce unique items in the food industry. Bell-View was one of the first companies to commercially produce Elderberry Jelly in the United States. We are also one of the first companies to commercially produce a fresh pack pepper. Our company has prided itself on item selection to differentiate ourselves from the competition. We have extended that spirit of differentiation to the present day product packaging, item selection, product pack and delivery system.

            Our current packaging contains elements of our history with glimpses of our future. We have painstakingly updated our labels to include the following changes.

1.      Larger label size by 15-20% depending on the item.

2.      Larger font type so labels can be easily read from a greater distance, allowing the consumer to make a quicker buying decision.

3.      New updated colorful Item Illustrations on every label. It’s an original touch on an original product.

4.      New Lithograph lids to be used for consumer promotions and brand awareness.

5.      New color breaks on flavor profiles, red-hot, green-sweet, blue-mild, purple-kosher and orange-olives.

6.      New Pack alignment in 2007 reducing many of our pack sizes from 12 to 6. We have found this program to be hugely successful. It offers the retailer less inventory per sku, faster turns per sku and the ability to carry more variety in the same space, reduced damages and labor due to lighter case weights.

Our history is impressive, but not as impressive as our future. Here are a few

highlights.

1.      We are a Fourth generation family run business that makes decisions based on sound financial and common sense.

2.      We now operate our Direct Store Delivery system in 12 states and it continues to grow everyday.

3.      We offer our products in all states via Distributors, Food Coop, Wholesalers and Major Chains.

4.      We deliver our products on our in house maintained privately owned fleet with professional drivers.

5.      We have over 250 years of experience in the food business between our principal ownership and management.

6.      We have built the Bell-View Brand and viable business since 1930.

7.      We continue to grow through extremely reliable and loyal customers and consumers.

8.      We have always brought new items and categories to the marketplace, continuing to innovate and progress.

9.      We are very accessible as a business, if you have a question or compliment just give us a call, we are always eager to assist any customer.

10.  We look forward to the future and its many challenges, our company has always been willing to compete, work hard and take care of our customers. If we continue on that path we know that our business will continue to survive and thrive. Our customers are the lifeline to success.

            Probably the greatest attribute of this business is the fact that everyone involved has worked their way up to his or her present position. Nothing comes easy in life and everyone of our associates and family members understand that fact, we are truly blessed with a great workforce of dedicated individuals who do their best everyday to serve the customer.