PRIDE Centric Resources and NAFED, the National Association of Food Equipment Dealers, have come together to form a purchasing cooperative known as Alignity Group. Both NAFED and PRIDE have equal ownership in this new purchasing cooperative.
PRIDE Centric Resources and NAFED, the National Association of Food Equipment Dealers, have come together to form a purchasing cooperative known as Alignity Group. Both NAFED and PRIDE have equal ownership in this new purchasing cooperative.
In addition to having equal ownership in Alignity Group, both groups have equal representation in the organization’s leadership and board of directors. Greg Ebel, who became CEO of PRIDE in January following the retirement of Karin Sugarman, serves as Alignity Group’s CEO. NAFED CEO Teresa Brown serves as vice president of finance for Alignity Group. Cara Schlarb, vice president of vendor programs for PRIDE, serves as vice president of vendor strategy for Alignity Group. And Lee Zabel, director of dealer/vendor development for NAFED, serves as vice president of vendor support for Alignity Group. In addition, Alignity Group will have a board of directors that consists of three members from both NAFED and PRIDE.
“Everything is very equal because we are very equal in terms of our size and scope. We are very aligned and unified and want to use that to drive our strategy moving forward,” Ebel says. “We will let our board and the market drive what Alignity Group becomes.”
Alignity Group will consolidate the purchasing power of NAFED and PRIDE while providing the dealer members with access to technology, and operational resources, per a release. The decision to create such an organization came from the desire to learn how to “begin to create a bigger meaning to the group and to increase our stance in the marketplace and the industry,” Ebel says. “More than anything, I did not expect something like this to happen so quickly. As our boards and teams began to talk, we began to see this as a joint venture.”
For the next six months, Ebel says Alignity Group’s efforts will focus on three specific areas: driving growth for the dealer members of both NAFED and PRIDE, creating a single voice and point of contact for the vendor community, and sharing information and best practices between the two organizations. “Our initial scope is really pretty simple,” he adds. “Step one was to create a partnership where each group owned 50% of a company. Now we want to look at the operations and core competencies of each group to see what we can learn from each other and create more operational efficiencies.”
For example, Ebel cited training programs as one of PRIDE’s strengths and central payment as one of NAFED’s strengths. “What this joint venture does is allow us to have all of those learnings and move forward as a group on an equalized basis,” Ebel says.
As of now, the initial scope is limited to the three points listed above. In other words, no plans are on the table to merge the organizations. “It really isn’t a merger strategy as we sit today,” says Ebel. “It’s a joint venture strategy. I’m going to leave to people’s imaginations what this becomes. But right now, it’s a joint venture for the two groups to work together. As we begin to face the market and look for operational efficiencies that’s when the two brands will start to come together more. In doing so we will create a single voice that the management team carries to the market.”
Collectively the Alignity Group represents “more than 150 dealer shareholders with combined annual sales exceeding $2 billion,” per a release announcing the joint venture. Taking a look at FE&S 2025 Distribution Giants study, NAFED and PRIDE had a combined 25 members make the list that outlines the top 100 foodservice equipment and supplies dealers by sales volume. Combined, NAFED and PRIDE members on the Distribution Giants list generated $505.4 million in sales in 2024, including companies that reported their data and FE&S estimates.
