GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Foodservice Distribution Market
The foodservice distribution market represents the total purchases of food and related foodservice supplies and products by customers, including restaurants, hospitals, retirement homes, schools, colleges, hotels, motels, cruise lines, and other foodservice operations - wherever a meal is prepared away from home.

C.A.R.E.S. Initiative
A program introduced in 1999 to formalize SYSCO's objectives and strategies for achieving complete customer satisfaction. It promotes practices that support superb customer service by all employees and covers every aspect of the business, including specific job responsibilities that influence service levels, customer recognition and employee awareness and recognition.

Real Sales Growth
Real sales growth is calculated by taking the growth of total sales and eliminating the effect of acquisitions and SYSCO's food cost inflation or deflation index.

SYSCO's Inflation/Deflation Index
SYSCO's inflation/deflation index is an internal measurement of the year-over-year annualized increase or decrease in the cost SYSCO pays for 12 categories of products.

"Fold-Out" Strategy
This strategy involves building distribution centers in established markets that were previously being served from a distance. Domiciled sales, delivery and support personnel, as well as new staff and a management team, are then hired or transferred from the parent company creating the "fold-out."

Marketing Associate
Marketing Associate is SYSCO's name for its 6,600 sales professionals who call on customers, assisting them not only by taking their orders, but also with inventory control, developing and costing their menus and other value-added services.

Marketing Associate-Served Customers
Marketing associate-served customers are typically entrepreneurially operated, single-unit foodservice operations that are called upon daily by one of SYSCO's marketing associates.

SYSCO Quality Assurance Department
The Quality Assurance Department includes 180 foodservice professionals who are responsible for developing the specifications for SYSCO Brand products, for inspecting the plants of the manufacturers and processors that will produce the products, and for enforcing SYSCO's rigorous standards.

SYSCO Brand
Approximately 38,000 products, including items from every product category, are produced under the SYSCO Brand name. It is truly a brand, not a private label, because the specifications are developed and enforced by SYSCO.

Specialty Brands
SYSCO's Specialty Brands include eth-nic product groupings, such as Italian, Mexican and Asian foods, other specialty products marketed to the delicatessen segment, and a line of table-top sauces and condiments.

SYSCO Uniform System (SUS)
SUS is a major update of management information computer systems company-wide. It includes procurement, pricing, warehousing, order processing, logistics, delivery, executive information and billing and finance applications, providing compatibility between all systems throughout the company. SUS is Year 2000-compliant and is believed to be the most advanced in the industry.

SYSCO Warehouse Management System (SWMS)
SWMS was the first application of the SUS system. It includes two components - an inventory management system and a labor management system. The inventory management portion is a locator system and a fully directed warehouse management system that tracks inventory through every aspect of its life in a SYSCO warehouse.

The labor management feature enables SYSCO operating companies to record, measure and report the productivity of warehouse personnel, managing an employee's productive time as various tasks are performed throughout the day. Its objectives include increasing safety in the warehouse, improving accuracy and efficiency and increasing productivity.

SYSCO Order Selector (SOS)
SOS is a finger-mounted product scanner that allows a warehouse product selector to verify - with the touch of a finger to bar-coding on a package - that the correct product is being pulled for an order. It tested very successfully in 1999, reducing order-selection errors significantly.

Previous | Return to Table of Contents | Next