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| Founded | July 1, 2012 |
|---|---|
| Defunct | October 18, 2013 |
| Products | Dairy, Deli, Frozen Foods, Grocery, Meat, Produce, Health & Beauty Care |
| Website | www.belle-foods.com |
Belle Foods, LLC was a family-owned chain of American supermarkets headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, unsuccessfully operated by father-son team Bill White and Jeff White. The company filed for bankruptcy in July 2013 and ceased operations in October 2013. Before Bill White and Jeff White started running Belle Foods in mid-2012, the 57-store grocery chain employed approximately 3,000 people.
Bankruptcy
The information revealed during the bankruptcy fallout painted a picture of a company that managed its funds very poorly, made purchase and selling decisions that favored the owners , wrote bad checks to cover six-figure debts and donated a large sum of money to local organizations in a city where union trouble was reported.
Belle Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 1, 2013, exactly one year after its founding.
Firing of ~300 Full-Time Workers
Leading up to the bankruptcy, Belle Foods said in April 2013 that it would hire approx. 300 part-time employees, but what that actually meant was that approx. 300 full-time employees were being let go and the laid off workers would possibly be offered part-time positions instead. Bill White at the time said, "I could see that if I didn't move forward with these reductions, even more teammates could be negatively affected."
Cullman, AL Grievance & Subsequent Local Concert/Donations
Later in April 2013, The Cullman Times reported that the affected workers had filed a grievance and were trying to stop the change, which affected the Cullman Food World (which was a Belle Foods store): "We’ve filed our grievance, so we’ll hopefully have a hearing within a week or so, then the employer has 10 days to respond. After that, if they’ve not responded in favor of membership, the next step would be arbitration." A few short months later in June 2013, Belle Foods was in Cullman, spending $50,000 by sponsoring a "Rock the South" music concert which gave funds to organizations such as The Link of Cullman County (Religious Non-Profit), Brooks' Place (Child Advocacy Center in Cullman) and Cullman Christian School. Rock The South occurred just a week before the company declared bankruptcy.
Bad Checks/Changing Banks Details
On July 17, 2013 creditors from Barber’s Dairy, Purity Dairies, Brown’s Dairy, Mrs. Stratton’s Salads and Mayfield Dairy Farms filed new claims stating that Belle Foods had written $191,005.18 worth of bad checks to them - because the checks were not honored by SunTrust. Just one day before these bad check claims were filed, Belle Foods announced they were switching from SunTrust to Cadence Bank.
Announcement To Close Remaining Stores
On July 24, 2013, less than a month after saying they were filing bankruptcy, Belle Foods announced they were selling all of their stores. This was due to their inability to pay off the $24 million in debt the company had generated or taken on in less than 12 months while Bill White and Jeff White ran the company. The stores were only permitted to be open until October 18, 2013 (unless sold) and Bill and Jeff White were quickly removed from their positions after a chief restructuring officer was chosen to oversee the bankrupcty.
Internal Auction Details
Bankruptcy filings in late September 2013 revealed that employees at the Corporate Office level were able to buy tens of thousands of dollars of automobiles, electronics and furniture for fractions of what they were worth in an internal auction. Bill White managed to get an iMac and iPhone for a mere $300 - while last year's iPhone model still retails for $675 and the cheapest iMac retails for $1,299. Jeff White bought a computer, an iPad and a chair just $330 (keep in mind the cheapest iPad model retails for approx. $340 ). The other iMac was sold to Jeff Ashland for only $100 – it's worth mentioning Jeff Ashland was the VP of Information Technology and had been with Belle Foods since 2012, even though the company cited "technical issues with its accounting system in 2012" as a cause for the bankruptcty. Other employees were able to get one of over a dozen iPads for as little as $150.
In total, a mere $31,075 from the auction was raised, despite 10 company vehicles (2004 or newer), 17 iPads, 2 iMacs, 1 iPhone, 7 computers, 5 laptops, a chair and a button machine being sold.
Bankrupcty Auction
In September 2013, Associated Wholesale Grocers was the only bidder (in a stalking horse bid) for Belle Foods stores being auctioned and offered just $16.1 million.
One of the stalking horse companies was labeled as '4Wall LLC (Bill White)' and it wanted to purchase the flagship Belle Foods Hoover store, along with a Tuscaloosa store. According to LegalZoom, '4Wall LLC' was formed on September 15, 2013, in Alabama, with no individuals listed in the filing. On August 30, 2013, another company was formed by Bill White and son Jeff White called 'White Phoenix Advisors' - a company that aimed to "help retail chains with their financial and HR struggles." In other words, the two people who caused Belle Foods to enter bankrupcty in just 12 months not only created a company that offered assistance with retail chain financial and HR struggles, they also planned to use a mysterious company made weeks before the auction to buy two of the first three rebranded Belle Foods stores. The same people who ran the company while it went into bankrupcty were, at the end, trying to buy select stores they renovated and rebranded in 2012.
Management Details
In February 2012, Jeff White remarked to the press, "We consider ourselves average Joes." Before Belle Foods, Bill White worked at Big Y Foods Inc. as their Chief Financial Officer. Jeff White worked with his father at Big Y Foods Inc. and also did some 'consulting' work. The Whites decided to bring in their own senior management team in when starting Belle Foods, instead of retaining all of the senior management who were already there. This was done despite Bill White saying, "Management has done a good job of turning the stores around in the last few years, and there are a lot of great, dedicated employees."
Jeff White also commented that, "It's a thin-margin business, which makes it fun." When asked about other grocery businesses near their soon-to-be-owned stores, Bill White said, "We don't fear them. We will attack what we feel are the weaknesses of our competitors." He also remarked that they had a capital budget to implement the changes they planned.
Ultimately, Bill White and Jeff White became just another set of names on Bruno's long list of out-of-state owners.
Union Involvement Details
Even though the majority of Southern Family Markets' union contracts were set to expire when the acquisition deal closed in mid-2012, the Whites started to re-negotiate them months in advance, as early as February 2012.
$40,537 Company Vehicle Details
During the September 2013 internal bankruptcy auction, it was revealed that a vehicle not available to be purchased was a 2012 Chrysler Town & Country minivan. This vehicle was bought in 2012 with a $40,537 loan taken out by Belle Foods and the owner's son, Jeff White, who was co-owner of Belle Foods. During bankruptcy proceedings (and after Bill White and Jeff White were ousted), Belle Foods asked to have Jeff White made the sole owner, but bank BBVA Compass would only do so if the location of the vehicle was disclosed to Compass and Compass be allowed to repossess and sell the vehicle. So according to BBVA's requests on file, not only did Jeff White get Belle Foods (which was run by him and his father at the time) to personally buy him a $40,537 vehicle while all other company cars had 150,000+ miles on them (and none were newer than a 2009 model), Jeff White was apparently hiding the vehicle (post-bankruptcy filing) in an effort to keep BBVA from repossessing it.
Belle Foods Awards/Recognition, Pre-Bankruptcy
In an ironic twist, not only was Belle Foods named "Retailer of the Year" in late 2012, its CEO, Bill White, was elected to the National Grocers Association's Board of Directors in February 2013, about four months before Belle Foods declared bankruptcy.
References
- "Contact." Belle Foods. Retrieved on October 5, 2012. "800 Lakeshore Pkwy Birmingham Alabama 35211"
- ^ "Belle Foods to sell remaining 44 stores". AL.com. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
- ^ "Father, son pursue dream with purchase of Southern Family's 57 grocery stores in 4 states". AL.com. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
- Belle Foods files bankruptcy "Belle Foods files bankruptcy". Birmingham Business Journal. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help) - "Birmingham-based Belle Foods to hire 300 part-time employees and reduce its full-time workforce". AL.com. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
- "Food World union filing grievance over layoffs, part-time transition". Cullman Times. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
- "Giving Back - Rock the South". Belle Foods. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
- "Belle Foods faces bounced check claims, new creditors' committee". AL.com. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
- ^ "Belle Foods' leaders buy company cars, iPads at bargain prices". AL.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- "iPhone 5 Price-$674 Unlocked". Amazon.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- "iMac 2012 Price-$1299 (Cheapest Version)". Apple.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- "iPad Mini Price-$343 (Cheapest iPad Model)". Amazon.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- "VPITBelleFoods.jpg". WikiMedia&LinkedIn. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- AWG is a Lone Bidder for Belle Foods; The Associated Grocers could have several new stores
- "Belle Foods bankruptcy auction hopes to ring up high bids". AL.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- ^ "New Bruno's owner Belle Foods continues rebranding; North and South Alabama stores up next". AL.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
- "Birmingham-based Belle Foods named Southeast Retailer of the Year". Birmingham Business Journal. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
- "NGA Elects Belle Foods' Bill White To Board". The Shelby Report. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
