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Who would misspell Fruitticher with three 't's on a delivery truck, just to see if someone would notice? Dave Wood II would.
The 51-year-old co-owner of Wood Fruitticher Grocery is a character, with a quick, dry wit and perhaps the state's largest collection of antique lawn mowers, stowed neatly under a stairwell at company headquarters on Morris Avenue. Visitors to his office can sit on any of the three 1940s-era theater chairs that face his desk.
Dave and his brother John, 49, have expanded the wholesale food distribution business started in 1913 by their grandfather, Dave Wood, and his partner, Oscar Fruitticher, into one of Alabama's largest, most successful institutional food suppliers.
Last year, the company and its 215 employees generated $84 million in revenue, which Dave Wood says has doubled every four years. Wood Fruitticher (pronounced "fruit-a-ker") distributes fresh and frozen vegetables, meats, condiments and other foodstuffs to the health care industry (mostly nursing homes), restaurants, schools and convenience stores in Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.
Room to play ball
The company runs two shifts at a warehouse larger than five football fields just off John Rogers Drive near the Birmingham International Raceway. Frozen food is Wood Fruitticher's niche, and produce is imported from as far away as Malaysia. Bananas are the top seller.
Dave is the front man and salesman. John is the operations and numbers guy.
"It...