Crest Foods has had a long run of surrounding ourselves with amazing suppliers, which means each year it becomes more and more difficult to choose a “Supplier of the Year.” With that being said, this year we had a stand out; a company whose time and dedication touched all three of our divisions.
St. Charles Trading has been a staple for the Dairy Ingredient Division for over 35 years, a valued distributor of various needed ingredients, relationship and service continues to flourish each year. Matt Kurowski found a way to push himself and his company’s limits, carving out a spot as the 2025 Supplier of the Year.
While Matt has served up plenty of ingredients used within the Consumer Products division over the last 7 years, a new type of relationship was formed. A relationship with “trust” as the focal point, ultimately creating growth and connections within our Contract Packaging and Consumer Products Divisions. Crest has always preached, one of the easiest ways for our suppliers to grow their business with us is to bring the opportunity to the table. Certainly easier said then done and we’ve never expected our suppliers to be our sales team too, but Matt found himself at a crossroad recently.
Matt had been approached by an existing customer with a large opportunity in which he knew his company was not equipped to handle. This is where the “trust us” portion of this journey began. Matt introduced us to his customer, which is a scary thing for any salesperson to do, trusting that Crest would pull through. While on the surface this project seemed like a slam dunk, creating a product just the same as all the other offerings in the space was not going to cut it. In turn, Crest now had to trust that St. Charles trading was going to come through. Not only did they come through, but they strategically crafted an ingredient that sets our launch apart from the rest. I can confidently say that together we’ve launched a product that will pay dividends to all involved.
Thank you Matt and St. Charles Trading for trusting Crest. We know we’ll continue to support each other for years to come.