Hale Groves parent buys Pittman & Davis
12:00 PM, Patrick Barnard
Southern Fulfillment Services (SFS) has acquired Pittman & Davis, a catalog and Internet company offering fruits and gourmet foods. Terms of the deal, which was announced on April 7, were not disclosed.
Harlingen, TX-based Pittman & Davis is known for its Texas grapefruit, as well as its other fresh fruit and gourmet food gift selections. Like most fruit mailers, it is primarily a holiday season cataloger.
Vero Beach, FL-based SFS already owns food gifts mailer Hale Groves. SFS also provides fulfillment for other merchants in both food and non-food categories. The company handles order processing, private label packing and other fulfillment operations.
SFS plans to maintain the Pittman & Davis brand and will market the two catalogs separately. It also says it will retain all Pittman & Davis employees and keep that merchant’s operations intact.
SFS vice president of business intelligence Bob Daberkow, detailed a few of the deal’s advantages in a statement: “This purchase allows us to expand our purchasing power, provides alternatives should we have a fruit crisis (such as after hurricanes), and opens the door to provide fruit and services to an expanding base of customers (geographically, demographically and economically).”