Clipper cargo horizons, Vol. 1, No. 5, May 1961

              The Prime Beef That Island-hops to Market
Smith, Richardson & Conroy air-exports 60,000 pounds of perishables monthly;
Pan Am’s Caribbean services are vital link in supplying booming resort area
DELIVERIES TO waiting Clipper Cargo planes at Pan Am’s Miami terminal means next-day delivery to resorts in the Caribbean and Central America.
Vacationers to the captivating islands of the Caribbean and to Central America take their meals for granted. R. C. Watters never did.
That’s why today his company is doing a lucrative business in Latin America and the Caribbean area. “Russ” as Watters is known to most of his associates and friends in the islands is vice-president of Smith, Richardson & Conroy, Inc. The firm is one of America’s oldest purveyors and dealers in wholesale meats, provisions, and kindred products operating out of a two-story headquarters at 30 N.E. 11th St., Miami, Fla.
Flights by Pan Am into the Caribbean buttress this export business. Daily Clipper schedules are providing vital links into the islands to destinations S. R. & C. is serving.
On the first jet into San Juan, for instance, Smith, Richardson & Conroy sent 3,453 pounds of perishable foodstuffs to one of the leading hotels there. And it is not unusual for the firm to move anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 pounds of cargo, mostly perishables, by Clipper each month. Destinations may
FABRICATING PLANT manager, C. J. McCoy, selects prime and choice hind quarters. Up to 300 hinds are constantly aging a minimum of two weeks before a knife is stuck in them.
include Trinidad, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Guatemala, and elsewhere. Perishables loaded into refrigerated trucks during evening hours are delivered next day direct to departing aircraft at Pan Am’s cargo terminal in Miami.
Specialty Operation. Smith, Richardson & Conroy, Inc. is 66 years young. It specializes in handling beef, veal, lamb, provisions, butter, eggs, and dressed poultry, as well as many specialty items —both for domestic consumption and for export. Among firms it represents are George A. Hormel, Land-O-Lakes Creameries, Jones Dairy Farms, Rockingham Poultry, Idlewild Farms, and Pepperidge Farms. Its mushrooming business has pushed it beyond its downtown operation into an expansion at 1062 N.W. 22nd St. Here a 7500-square-foot fabricating plant handles federally-inspected meats ranging from U. S. Prime to U. S. Standard, fabricating cuts of meat for hotels and resort institutions to their exact specifications and requirements.
Market Development. For over half a century S. R. & C. had confined itself to the seasonal business fluctuations of the local Miami resort area, even though as early as the 20’s it was tapping the export market in the Bahamas and Cuba. In the past decade and a half, it has lifted its sights from specialty accounts alone and has expanded over a broad range of products and items.
Part of this new focus on fresh markets has centered on the burgeoning ex-
port possibilities in the Caribbean. In 1951, Russ Watters took off on a junket through the islands, visiting Puerto Rico, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and the Latin American area generally.
“When we were through,” says Russ, “we had visited a great number of markets and now we are doing business at 38 different points, most of them serviced by Pan American. Our knowledge of the growing resort business put us in an excellent competitive position as a supplier. At that time resorts were developing with surprising rapidity. Owners habitually bought in bulk and were served by surface from New York. This meant stocking excessive inventories of perishables subject to deterioration and resultant heavy losses.”
Smith, Richardson & Conroy, Inc. sold these resort owners on purchasing from Miami and taking delivery on a daily or twice weekly basis. From the first, Pan Am’s routes and schedules in the area fitted admirably into this concept of merchandising perishables. Service All Around. “Air freight lends itself to the better items Smith, Richardson & Conroy, Inc. supplies hotels and resort establishments,” points out Russ. “I’m thinking particularly of fillets, steaks, and fine cuts of meat.”
At the same time they must be moved quickly by refrigerated truck to waiting planes, and then sped on to the resorts. Packing must be done in double-(Continued on Page 8)
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