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Tops Friendly Markets has long been a household name in the Northeast, known for its hometown spirit and dedication to supporting local communities. Founded in 1962 in Niagara Falls, New York, the company has since grown to a network of over 150 grocery stores across New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. At the heart of this growth has been a steadfast commitment to local food — a commitment that has only strengthened over time through initiatives like the Tops Loves Local program.
But as any grocer will tell you, loving local and managing local are two very different things.
For decades, Tops has sourced fresh produce, dairy, meat, and pantry staples from farms and producers all across the region. Each store often purchased from dozens of local suppliers, creating a vibrant and diverse local food offering. However, as this program expanded, the complexity ballooned.
Daily communications between stores and suppliers — orders, deliveries, price checks, and invoices — became a tangled web of emails, phone calls, and texts. Some described it as “organized chaos,” but for many store managers, it felt more like trying to orchestrate a beehive.
Tom Sulski, Category Manager for Natural and Organic at Tops, recognized that the future of local sourcing at scale depended on building the right operational foundation. “Our team was committed to growing the Tops Loves Local program, but we needed a system that could scale with us — not one that added more layers of complexity,” he said.
That’s when Tops turned to Local Line.
Local Line, a farm-to-fork procurement platform, offered Tops the visibility and efficiency they were missing. With Local Line, all of Tops’ local food purchasing — across all 150 stores — could be centralized and managed in one place.
From the start, the impact was substantial.
“Local Line cut down 90% of the time we used to spend onboarding new suppliers,” said Sulski. That’s largely due to the dedicated support of David Vitanza, Local Line’s Account Manager, who personally oversees the onboarding of all local suppliers. From uploading products and prices to managing package codes and completing new item setup forms, David ensures every supplier is ready to sell into Tops with minimal effort on the store’s end.
This alone freed up hours of administrative time and ensured consistency across the network.
More than 50 Tops locations are already live on Local Line, with the remaining stores scheduled to come online by the end of summer 2025. The early results speak volumes.
Store managers are reporting savings of up to five hours per week on local ordering alone. Instead of juggling texts, calls, and email chains with a dozen suppliers, a store manager can now place a single bulk order for every local item across every supplier — all in just a few minutes.
“It’s a huge relief,” said one store manager. “You log in, select what you need from your approved list of suppliers, and you’re done. It’s faster, cleaner, and you don’t lose track of what’s been ordered.”
On the financial side, Local Line’s online payments platform has transformed how Tops processes local purchases. By acting as the single vendor of record, Local Line enables Tops to issue just one payment per week — regardless of how many local suppliers were involved.
Local Line then automatically distributes those funds to the relevant suppliers.
For Tops, this reduces the burden on its accounting team and streamlines the month-end closing process. “Before, we’d be dealing with dozens of small invoices from a range of suppliers. Now it’s one line item, one payment, and everything else is handled behind the scenes,” said Sulski. “It’s made a huge difference in our back-office efficiency.”
As Tops continues to expand its local program, the company plans to leverage one of Local Line’s most exciting features: Supplier Discovery.
With access to Local Line’s network of over 10,000 local suppliers from coast to coast, Tops can now identify new vendors that match the needs of specific stores. Whether it’s a new dairy partner in Upstate New York or a maple syrup producer in Vermont, Tops can tap into a growing database of verified, ready-to-sell suppliers with just a few clicks.
“Supplier Discovery is going to be a big part of how we grow this program in the years ahead,” Sulski noted. “It allows us to stay nimble while deepening our commitment to local food.”
For Tops, supporting local isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a core value. Through the Tops Loves Local program, the company continues to invest in regional food economies, build resilience into its supply chain, and offer customers the best of what local producers have to offer.
With Local Line as their trusted technology partner, Tops is transforming that legacy into a modern, scalable operation — one that can support 150 stores today and grow even further in the future.
“As we look ahead, our goal is to make local food more accessible and efficient for everyone involved,” said Sulski. “With Local Line, we’ve built the foundation to do exactly that.”
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