Buffalo Rock, the largest single-family, privately owned Pepsi bottler in the United States, recently received a 2005 Alabama Quality Award. Buffalo Rock is a process-driven organization that has implemented a number of innovative management practices to allow employee-partners to become more involved in the business. These include a profit-sharing program and certification processes that measure marketplace performance.

“It’s a great honor and well-deserved acknowledgment to Buffalo Rock’s employees and customers to accept the Alabama Quality Award,” says James C. Lee III, president and CEO. “For the past 100-plus years, Buffalo Rock has built its business on high levels of commitment to quality, management processes, and overall customer and employee satisfaction.”

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, Buffalo Rock has 2,500 employees and operates 13 distribution centers in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. The Alabama Quality Award is modeled after the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and evaluates the following criteria: excellence in leadership, strategic planning, attention to customers and other stakeholders, market focus, process management and analysis of organizational performance.

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