The reason there has been almost no press coverage of the multi-million dollar deal is that the principals have been reluctant to talk for publication, but in exclusive interviews with The Beer Yard this past week both Ed Friedland and Skip Kunda revealed much of the background and their plans for the future.

"Ed approached me, which was great," says Kunda, "and we met and discussed this thing for months until he was comfortable with coming here to work for us and with the fact that all of his employees would have jobs with us. I gave him his asking price in the end--although I did get to defer some of it--because it was right and fair. That was a good sign from the start. If it had been too high, I'd have had to walk away; if it had been too low, I'd have been worried that his numbers were all wrong."

"I went to Kunda because I thought they'd be the best fit," says Friedland. "I know Skip and I know he'll care about our accounts. Plus I knew he'd be willing to take on my employees, who I wanted to protect. Kunda is small enough that they need our drivers and trucks and big enough to fit our accounts into their system smoothly, so it's a perfect marriage. I have a five-year contract with them and will function as a kind of brand manager for the beers we're bringing over. Some of my customers and some of the breweries are a little nervous because they aren't familiar with Skip and his company yet, but they can count on dealing with me just as they always have for a long time to come."

Kunda agrees. "Ed will have a lot of latitude. I consider him our walking resource and want all the people who respect him and have counted on him to know that he'll be here to continue that same approach to business. We'll even keep the current Friedland phone number for a while and forward the calls to his office here to make it easy for everyone. He's more than half the reason I did the deal, to be honest. His great strength has always been his knowledge of the beers and understanding of how to sell them to a customer base which is equally passionate and devoted to them. We'll free him up to do what he does best."

Friedland said he decided to sell when his company was forced to fully unionize last summer. "They let me get by for a lot of years with only a few of my people in the union," he says. "When I had to sign up everybody, my labor costs reached the level where I couldn't make a reasonable profit, even when I increased my margins by several percentage points. Because Kunda has some big brands like Heineken, Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada to help pay the freight and their guys are already in the same union, they can handle it."

Friedland will bring a potential 52 brands to Kunda when the deal is finalized in late January (the agreement is not based on Kunda's getting the rights to 100% of the existing brands, although they do have the legal right to them). Skip Kunda has been meeting and negotiating daily with breweries or their local representatives for most of January and expects to continue to do so through most of February. "We're saying February 20 for finalizing it all," he says, "even though we might have it wrapped up sooner. I want to be sure everything is planned right and that there's no service disruption for anybody. Logistically, we've never gone through a transaction this large before."

Current Friedland sales reps Tony Madjor and Peter Brett will join Kunda, with a third rep to be added, as well as Friedland himself and his drivers. Brett, who has handled Bucks and Chester counties, will move to the city market. Bob Hart, who "really knows the market," according to Kunda, has already been hired from Wood Beverage, which closed down at the end of 2005, and at least one telephone sales taker from Wood is also about to be hired.

Kunda has committed to adding a second, large refrigeration unit to its current structures and is applying in February to extend its rear warehouse. "Plus I have two acres of ground behind the building and an agreement with a neighbor to sell me more ground if I need it. I've already contracted with an engineering and surveying firm to lay out a 10,000 square foot parking lot with loading docks back there."

Kunda said that getting Friedland's brands into existing suburban accounts where they aren't currently represented will be one of the immediate focuses after the transition. Noting that Kunda is firmly ensconced as a leading wholesaler in Montgomery County and Friedland in Philadelphia itself, he said that Delaware County would be an early target. Distribution in counties further out, like Chester and Bucks, will be largely managed through sub-distributors, he added.

"The culture of beer wholesaling over the last 25 years has taught us that's a great way to do business," he says. "Ed could only run a truck out to some of those areas once a week; we'll be able to fill orders a lot faster. Our subs are as excited as we are about the potential. The one in Bucks County, for example, has committed to carry every SKU we bring in from Friedland and we're working with him by taking a lower margin than usual so he can maintain the price levels."

Kunda says he hopes those customers with concerns about his company's ability to maintain the same services as were a standard at Friedland will discover quickly that there isn't any issue at all. "Because we're a retailer as well as a wholesaler, we have a lot different perspective than many of our larger competitors," he says. "We've been adding smaller SKUs to our product lines for some years now and we definitely understand that there are beers we'll have to carry in smaller quantities for specific customers. You know, there's an old saying in the industry that the difference between the mainstream brands and the craft brands is like the difference between ketchup and salsa. With Friedland's brands, we're getting a very special salsa and we're looking forward to it."

And what's Ed Friedland looking forward to? "Getting back to selling beer face to face," he says, and then laughs. "And not getting up at 6am to go load trucks."