BULLHEAD CITY – The successful operation of Dot Foods in Bullhead City and its push through the pandemic was discussed during Monday’s Mohave County Board of Supervisors meeting. Local General Manager Rocky Vecera told the Board that Dot Foods benefits from corporate strength as it works through the COVID-19 health crisis.
“Dot is financially stable, luckily. We don’t have any fears of closing down. There’s no layoffs. Nothing like that,” Vecera assured supervisors. “We’re weathering the storm and we’re doing the best we can to tighten the belts and be as efficient as possible.”
Vecera said the pandemic has cut into the 88% portion of its local business that is food service related. He said the 12% of its business that is retail related has been booming, but not enough to offset food service losses.
“As of today, Bullhead City is about at 65% of our budgeted pounds, or budgeted volume. So, we’re coming back up,” Vecera said. “We were making a nice steady climb when we got to the mid-70’s and then California and Arizona and Nevada tightened the belt back up and closed things down.”
Vecera said Dot Foods employs 223 people locally, with some 260,000 square feet of space for product storage. He said the company made charitable donations totaling $55,000 for about 30 Bullhead City area entities in 2018.
Vecera said some 40 local organizations received another $110,000 in contributions in 2019, before demand dropped off this year due to the coronavirus.
“Requests for monetary donations have not come in like they have in the previous years. Lots of people aren’t meeting, obviously. The non-profits aren’t as active but what we did, just in Bullhead City alone, we’ve given out over 350,000 pounds of food to the local food banks.
Supervisors expressed thanks that Vecera and Dot Foods have been great additions for Bullhead City.
- Dave Hawkins
