Meet Marco Antonio Achirica Padilla of Cabell USA in Duluth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marco Antonio Achirica Padilla.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Marco. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Post-graduation from The University of Georgia in 2018 with a degree in Marketing and an emphasis in Professional Sales. I partnered up with my Father, Marco Sr. Antonio Achirica Aguilar, and began to structure a similar business model as his Latino grocery, snacks, and candy distribution center, 2 Amigos Distributions, but with a wider reach by incorporating multicultural brands such as POCAS (Korean), OKF (Korean), Super (Colombian), Frito Lay (USA), and Gallito Mex (Mexican), to name a few. We were passionate to provide immigrants the opportunity to reconnect with their cultures and Americans an opportunity to experience new flavors and expand their cultural experience.

Cabell USA began in October 2018 as a small project to expand the customer base of our family’s companies’ reach, but within a year and a half, we have established ourselves as market leaders and Master Distributors for many brands in our industry as well as received recognition from household name brand: Little Debbie Snacks for being pioneers in the distribution of this American-born brand in the Atlanta Latino supermercado market. We have also begun to create our own brands by manufacturing Gallito Mex and HydroLife in Mexico so that we could have quality control of some of the products we distribute, which is an incredible opportunity to build within our company.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has not been a smooth road, as I have had to learn many leadership skills when it comes to helping my employees focus on their strengths and working together to fortify each others’ weaknesses. Also, learning to have an open mind and be open to constructive criticism when it comes to my father being my business partner.

Our distribution project with Little Debbie was a tough learning process due to the brands’ introduction to a completely new market by diving headfirst with its 14-21 day shelf-life, when our experience with short expiration dates capped at three months. This led us to have customers complain about the products, but with a recovery strategy that we implemented to recuperate the brand and Cabell’s image through giving credits and replacing Little Debbie Snacks with new Latino products that had a higher shelf rotation we were able to continue building Cabell’s image.

Another struggle has been having to put all of our money into the company and not have any loans as of yet. This has limited our growth and purchasing power, but I am glad that everything we are building as far is 100% ours. As we entered the Latino product distribution market in 2018, we also came across an issue of having to differentiate ourselves from a saturated competitive market, but social media and our excellent service has helped distinguish us. Dealing with the stress of people depending on Cabell USA to provide for their families was something that kept me up at night during the first six months so, I decided to go to therapy and learn coping mechanisms and to ultimately trust God for everything that is out of my control, instead of going crazy worrying about those variables.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Cabell USA story. Tell us more about the business.
We develop new brands and new product lines for existing brands with three forms of distribution: wholesale (sell to distributors across the US and within GA), Direct-Store-Distribution, and Pre-sale to best serve our diverse client base. The breakdown of our local clients are composed of 80% Latino supermercados, 10% gasoline stations/convenience stores, and 10% distributors/cash and carries.

I have been able to build a team of passionate leaders that I can support myself with to continue our expansion in Georgia and brand presence in states across the USA. Investing in social media presence such as our Facebook Page: Cabellusa and Instagram Page: @cabellusa has been another great tool to introduce Cabell to the Atlanta community and maintain our relationship with stores, distributors, and end-consumers.

In 2019 we closed the year with $880,000 in gross sales and 2020 we are projected to average a 30% growth as of these past four months. I am most proud of having a team that is dedicated to Cabell USA and has decided to flourish during these past three months of this global pandemic. I could not be more thankful for everyone that forms part of our company’s family. I am proud of administrating a company that has the ability to bless the community with products that remind people of their home countries and childhoods because as a first-generation Latino, I often found myself struggling to assimilate and maintain my Mexican culture.

I am proud of our direct expansion into Tennessee after our first year of business and that the Tennessee routes we have flourished alongside Super Carniceria Loa a community-driven chain of supermercados in Chattanooga and Cleveland TN. I believe that one of the most important differentials of Cabell USA is that God is at the center of the company and I recognize that our success is founded in His desire to bless peoples’ lives through Cabell and not for self-aggrandizement.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I cannot attribute Cabell’s success or difficulties to “luck”, because I believe that God has guided our steps at Cabell USA and that even when difficult times have affected our moral and finances, we have learned from those processes and they have helped us prepare for future difficulties.

For example, I thought that we would have to close down early March when Covid-19 began to wreak havoc around the world, but instead, I buckled up and had faith in my Heavenly Father and continued to work and create safety protocols for our employees and customers so that we can tackle this pandemic, day by day. We have been excelling during these difficult economic times and to me, that confirms that God is paving the way for us. So, in this case, I thank God for His purpose with all of us at Cabell. We are excited for what is to come the rest of this 2020.

Contact Info:

• Address: 2870 North Berkeley Lake Rd.
  Suite 6 Duluth, GA 30096
• Phone: 4044546295
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cabellusa/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CabellUsa/

Image Credit:
Zambos USA, Manzela USA, 2 Amigos Distributions, Super Carniceria Loa, Winnuts USA

Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.