Gemini Food Corp. and Tong Enterprises

Tong Enterprises was established more than 25 years ago. Tong's sales representatives have a combination of over five decades of experience serving this market, and provide expert guidance to both customers and vendors. Tong Enterprises' warehouse in Hayward California is strategically located to both receive shipments from Gemini Food and to send out products to customers.

Gemini Food Corp. started over ten years ago by building a 77,000 square feet warehouse in City of Industry. This practical location allowed it to receive containers from the port of Long Beach and then ship out goods to customers either by truck or through the cross-country railroad center located nearby.

The right mixture of expertise and integrity.

The success of Gemini Food and Tong Enterprises rests on two founding principles: expertise and integrity. Together, these principles are what sets the company apart from other distributors. These same principles are the reason why so many of the company’s relationships are long-lasting.

Expertise

A two-way relationship. In the simplest sense, our companies connect food manufacturers in Asia with customers in the West. That connection is an active two-way relationship, and we manage our ties on both sides of the Pacific with that relationship in mind.

Efficiency in distribution. We help manufacturers throughout Asia find new markets for their products. That requires an in-depth knowledge of Western markets and the expertise to know which markets are best suited for various products. To the untrained Western eye, Asian food distribution might appear like a single monolithic marketplace. But our experience - our expertise in the business - tells a different story.

With its dedicated, knowledgeable sales force, our companies know that Western markets contain dozens of smaller sub-markets, each with its own unique characteristics. For example, a city whose Asian population is mostly Chinese will not be the best market for products that appeal specifically to Thai or Vietnamese populations. And because consumers are mobile, we make it our business to track growth and contraction in every major Asian sub-community.

Manufacturers throughout Asia count on us to know which markets are best for their products. This level of value-added knowledge lets us provide unmatched distribution efficiency to manufacturers.

Bringing innovative products to market.
Similarly, our customers in the US count on us to have our finger on the pulse of Asian food manufacturing and trends in the business. They count on us to know who is making which tried-and-true products, which manufacturers are working on innovative new products, and other details of this complex business.

Putting all this product knowledge to work for the benefit of the customer is another value-added component. It helps our customers remain competitive in their local markets and helps them stay innovative in their own offerings to the end user.

Customers also count on our expertise in the simple mechanics of food distribution. Not every distributor has the resources or the knowledge to store product in an appropriate environment. Knowing, for example, which products are highly photosensitive (i.e. sensitive to light) helps us avoid shipping spoiled product to unsuspecting retailers.

Integrity

Even after 25 years, we remain the preferred vendor for many customers. One reason why: our sales force comprised of eight highly talented and hardworking representatives, builds customer relationships on trust and integrity. We don't just talk the talk, we make the effort to do what's right.

Our customers trust us to know the Asian food landscape. To know what products sell best in which kinds of neighborhoods. To know what product innovations are about to be rolled out. To know which manufacturers maintain the highest quality standards.

Taking the time. Even more importantly, our customers also trust us to know their business, their markets, their concerns. To gain this level of familiarity requires a sales force that's dedicated to customer success. So we take the time to know the retailers who count on us. We visit regularly. Not just in the initial stages of a budding business relationship but on an ongoing basis. We research. We listen. We recommend. And our customers thank us with some of the highest loyalty in the business.

Our companies customers know they can count on us to prevent problems from happening. That's why we use high-tech tools like computer inventory control and sophisticated MIS systems. Our customers also count on us to resolve issues when they do occur. If a shipment isn't right, they know we'll make it right. If there is an unforeseen delay, they know we will do what it takes to work out a solution.

Community Service

Leadership in the communities we serve.
The Tong family and the employees of our companies owe much of their success to the communities where we do business. So as individuals and as a company, we play a leading role in supporting those communities whenever possible. A few of our community involvement efforts include:

• Endowment of a professorship at a university in Taiwan
• Support for a foundation that builds schools in mainland China
• Food shipments for Asian victims of hurricanes in New Orleans and Mexico
• Donations to local churches in California
• Support for a local Buddhist organization
• Donations to food banks in California's Orange and Marin Counties

These and other efforts remind us that we benefit from our respective communities and that we honor those communities by giving something back.

Our History

In 1982, Mr. Chiun Mau Tong, a Taiwanese immigrant to the San Francisco area, founded a food distribution company in his garage. His dream of success was much bigger than his $200 in working capital. But through hard work and determination, that dream has paid off. The company soon outgrew Mr. Tong's garage and moved to a public rental storage facility and then to their first office/warehouse facility in 1986. With the Asian population booming, demand for Asian food increased, forcing a move to a second facility in 1988.

His son George Tong earned his MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University and joined the firm in 1991. The company moved to its current headquarters in Hayward, CA in 1992. A sister company, Gemini Food Corporation, opened in 1996 in Los Angeles to service customers in Southern California and other states. Gemini currently operates from a state-of-the-art 77,000-square-foot facility.

Today, our companies distribute a huge assortment of Asian food items to retailers along the entire West Coast and 30 other states. In fact, the company's retail and warehouse distribution channel reaches 99% of the Asian food retailers in the U.S.