KW Beverage Greenville Employee Directory

WholesaleSouth Carolina, United States51-200 Employees

Beer was legalized in 1933 with the repeal of prohibition. In order to gain national distribution as quickly as possible, Anheuser-Busch elected to network through successful food distributors who already had warehouses and equipment in place. At that time the upstate of South Carolina was the heart of Pearce-Young-Angel Wholesale Food Distributors.  That distribution network created a perfect scenario for beer to be distributed on the trucks that were already delivering groceries and produce. 

In 1954, the Columbia, Anderson, and Greenville operations were established as separate companies for the distribution of Anheuser-Busch products. They were known as PYA Distributing and proved to be very successful in quickly establishing Budweiser as the number one beer in those cities.

 In 1967, PYA was able to change the name of the companies to Budweiser of Columbia, Budweiser of Greenville, and Budweiser of Anderson.  It remained that way until 2005 when Greenville and Anderson merged together. 

In 2001 a dedicated Budweiser of Columbia Sales Manager by the name of Gene Williams was brought in by the Pierce family as an equity owner.  Hard work soon created the same opportunity for Jim Kirkham. While working towards retirement; Gene brought his son Rodney Williams in as his successor.  In 2007 Rodney Williams and Jim Kirkham became sole owners of the rapidly growing company.

In 2012 Jim and Rodney chose to change the official company name to KW Beverage.  We believe that KW Beverage more accurately represents who we are today.  In addition to our Anheuser-Busch family of products, we partner with a wide variety of craft/ import brewers and beverage suppliers from our hometowns to across the globe.

Budweiser of Columbia and Greenville is our proud heritage, but KW Beverage is our future.  We will continue to grow our beverage portfolio with the best products available, while committing to world-class service and support for our customers.

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