Bethany Toldo, president of family-owned Centoco Manufacturing of Windsor, Ontario, recently made the long trip to Bentonville to pitch toilet seats her company makes in McCrory (Woodruff County), about 75 miles southwest of Jonesboro.
Toldo said the McCrory plant has been a fixture in the small town for four decades and employs about 48 people.
"Our family wanted to supply quality toilet seats across North America, and when they founded the company in 1980, they established production in Ontario but then sought out a place in the U.S. to help them cover the map," she said. "Arkansas is located in the middle and gives us distribution coast to coast."
Toldo, an engineer, took over the company operations about two years ago after spending three decades working in the auto industry in Troy, Mich. She said Centoco pitched to Walmart about three years ago before her time at the company and did not get a deal. She signed up this spring through the RangeMe application and received another invite to Bentonville.
She met with merchants from Walmart and Sam's Club at the recent Open Call and pitched the slow-close toilet seat, which is made in Arkansas, to the buyer teams. Centoco got the golden ticket to proceed with a deal in the coming months. Toldo said she knows there is a lot of work to do before the first shipment is sent.
"Toilet seats are all we do," she said. "We sell wholesale as well as to maintenance, repair, and operations companies and have some OEM business."
The company's website states that since 1980 Centoco has been innovating and making toilet seats that are distributed in North America. The company was one of the first manufacturers of polypropylene plastic injection-molded toilet seats in 1980. In 2004, the patented Centoco technology was released for co-injected molded wood seats that will not chip or peel. In 2019, the Fast-N-Lock Mounting System was introduced to quickly install and lock commercial toilet seats in place to keep the seat from moving side to side.
Toldo said the company's engineers are continuously working to bring more technology to the designs.
Centoco toilet seats are already sold at Home Depot, Lowe's, Amazon and on Walmart.com. Toldo said the new deal could involve making a private brand assortment for the retailer to sell in select stores.
"We know that Walmart is a key business," Toldo said. "And it's important for the USA, and it's also important for the world. It's also right in our backyard, so why not pitch again? That was our mindset. Walmart is such a great company that we just want to be a part of that. And we always have wanted to be a part of that."
One thing that most impressed Toldo about the buyer teams at Walmart and Sam's Club was their interest in something new. She said their encouragement toward innovation was refreshing.
She said the retail giant was interested in a couple of products for stores, but the company will continue to use the marketplace -- the online site Walmart manages for companies that sell direct to consumers -- for testing and product demand while they work with Walmart on packaging, fulfillment options and production schedules that align with store inventory changes.
Toldo said the 30-minute Open Call meeting with buyers goes fast. She said there are tons of questions to ask and steps to complete in this process to be a Walmart supplier.
Walmart audits each plant it uses to make its products. If the supplier is not a manufacturer, Walmart can facilitate moving the manufacturing to a plant that is already set up under the retail giant's protocols. When the supplier is a manufacturer, Walmart works in that partnership.
Given that Centoco already has a retail business, it is ahead in many aspects. She said Walmart's ongoing work with America 250 to celebrate the country's 250th birthday next summer also was discussed in her meeting. She said between now and then, Centoco will test certain products on Walmart's marketplace to see which customers prefer.
"They encouraged us to give some thought to what we could launch at the store to tie in with the 250th birthday celebration," she said. "I am not sure if that will be in our brand or a private brand if the new packaging is completed by then. We have some tasks to do and plenty to think about in how to help with that big promotion next summer."
Toldo returned to Ontario on Oct. 10 after meeting with her team in McCrory the previous day. She said the plan in the next 30 days is to continue to stay in touch with Walmart on the next steps.
"We've got some criteria to review on how they package products and things like that," Toldo said. "I still have a couple questions about next steps, to get it clear in my mind. But I do know that there's absolutely a lot to do to make this come to fruition. So we're kind of through the first hurdle, and very excited about it, as is the team in McCrory."
Toldo said the biggest advice she could give a prospective supplier to Walmart is to consider that everything is possible, have a can-do attitude and make Walmart say "No" and even then, don't give up.
"Serve up all the options you can, work and try to find a path," she said. "I heard from so many people at the Open Call who said it took the second or third time to get a deal, but they kept heeding the advice that came with each failure and learning along the way. Nobody's lucky every time. It's just lots of grit and perseverance, right?"