suntimesnews.com

By Glenn Graham, Director, Perry County Industrial Development Authority

PERRYVILLE -- How many people realize there is a group of about 1,300 people in Perry County who, in the course of their daily work, cause about $500 million to flow through Perry County every year?

While a lot of that money has to flow out again to pay for the cost of operation, there is still over $35 million per year distributed throughout the community. In addition, they distribute several million dollars more to pay for goods and services their group needs.

I would guess that the final result is about three-quarters of a million dollars is distributed locally every week as a result of their effort.

Who are those 1,300 people? They are the folks who work at Gilster-Mary Lee making products that are sold all over the world. With 1,300 employees, it is the largest employer in Perry County. The employees' task is not easy because they are in a very competitive market and the profit percentage is very low.

Many years ago there were thousands of small family-owned grocery stores all over the country buying small quantities of merchandise. They had very little power to negotiate price with the manufacturing plants that produced the merchandise, but today it is estimated that only five companies control 50 percent of all the retail grocery market.

Those five large companies have tremendous buying power and can demand lower prices from companies like Gilster-Mary Lee. That makes the task of every employee at Gilster-Mary Lee more difficult in controlling quality and cost. Of course, every business must control quality and cost, but in an industry with such strong competition, it has to be done with a lower margin.

The products they produce are sent worldwide. They are low-cost grocery items made to exacting health standards and shipped all over the United States in the Gilster-Mary Lee trucks we've all seen on the highway. The company has 250 tractors and 750 trailers that carry the products made here to every corner of the country.

There is not room in this article to list all the products they make or even all the brand names they package food for, but I'm sure all of us have eaten food produced by them at one time or another.

The 1,300 employees of Gilster-Mary Lee are joined by another 2,000 local employees working for other local industries producing products here and selling them outside Perry County. That is 3,300 local folks bringing money into Perry County. While this number may not be exact, I think it is close enough for this estimate.

Let's assume that $1 million per week brought by the 1,300 local people working at Gilster-Mary Lee is representative of the other 2,000 local people working at the other industries. Based on that we can estimate that somewhere between $2 or $3 million per week flows into Perry County as a result of local industry.

Economists claim that money coming into a community will turn over seven times before it leaves the community. In other words, each dollar will be spent seven times to buy products or services before it is spent outside the area. This has a huge effect on the quality of life in Perry County.