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Inco Beverage: A Family
Business, Built From the Ground Up
It began as the dream of Joseph and Amelia
Incardona to run their own business.
Today, Inco Beverage, Inc. is a thriving organization with over 90 employees distributing a portfolio of outstanding brands and products to more than 2000 accounts. |
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Joe Incardona, the son of Italian immigrants,
embodied the spirit of the American entrepreneur. From
the day he started Inco Beverage in 1934, he truly loved
the beer business. It showed in the hard work and
determination he and his wife Amelia poured into
building their business from the ground up.
From its beginnings as a small distributor of a single
beer brand, Inco Beverage grew by leaps and bounds. Joe
had a knack for anticipating important changes in the
industry, which helped him acquire franchises for many
of the nation's top beer brands. He became a Miller
distributor ten years before the company created the
light beer category with its popular Miller Lite
product.
The addition of Coors to Inco's growing portfolio of
brands brought phenomenal growth to the company. Joe’s
wealth of industry experience, and his commitment to
quality and service, helped place Inco Beverage among
the leaders in its industry.
Joe passed away in 1993, followed two years later by his
devoted wife and business partner Amelia. Their legacy
lives on, however, as the next generations in their
family continue to steer the company toward a promising
future as one of the leading beer distributors in
Pennsylvania.
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Inco Beverage's first
location, on Adams St. in downtown Johnstown,
PA.
Joe Incardona, center, with the company truck
and drivers.
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| Seven Decades of Excellence
in the Beer Industry |
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Joe and Amelia Incardona, founders of Inco
Beverage
Inco Beverage's first location, on
Adams St. in downtown Johnstown,
PA. |
Inco Beverage was
founded in 1934, shortly after the end of
Prohibition, by Joseph and Amelia Incardona.
Joe, the son of Italian immigrants, had given up
his career as a band leader in Rochester, NY, to
move to Amelia's hometown of Johnstown, PA. He
went to work for Amelia's family, the Pumas, at
their banana importing business. Always the
independent sort, though, he jumped at the
opportunity to own his own business when he was
offered part-ownership in a Rockwood Beer
distributorship, just a few blocks away from the
Puma warehouse.
Within a year, he bought out the other partner,
and renamed the company Inco Beverage.
Joe was the general manager, the salesman, and
the delivery man. Amelia was the company's
bookkeeper. They were soon forced to move into a
tiny storefront around the corner, because their
Adams Street landlord also wanted to sell beer
out of their building. Then, in March 1936,
Mother Nature presented the first of many
hurdles the Incardonas would have to
overcome...a devastating flood. They saved the
trucks and some equipment by fleeing up the
mountainside, while the beer from their
warehouse ended up 20 miles downstream.
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Inco Beverage managed to survive, and after taking
on the Schlitz and Fort Pitt brands, it was back on its
feet. Soon, the company outgrew the crowded storefront
on Railroad Street, so Joe Incardona bought his first
building, the warehouse at 105 Adams Street where he had
originally started his business.
It was an era when neighborhood taverns thrived.
Bartenders wore starched white shirts and bowties, and a
bottle of beer sold for 20 cents. Rapid growth prompted
Joe to expand his business again in 1945. He moved Inco
to a bigger place, a former service station at 641
Railroad Street. Inco operated there until 1958. During
that period, the company doubled its staff of delivery
men. Schlitz became the nation's most popular beer. Inco
added the Stegmaier label to its growing stable of
brands.
Things were rolling along until a bitter strike by
Pittsburgh brewery workers brought business to a
screeching halt. It became known as "The Beer Wars."
Inco had no inventory of beer for 107 days. The
company's drivers and their families were on the verge
of going hungry. Joe Incardona stepped in, and organized
a convoy of trucks to drive through the picket lines and
pick up beer in Pittsburgh. On their way back, striking
brewery workers through Molotov cocktails at the convoy.
Two of the trucks were burned, but the drivers were able
to escape and return to Johnstown with most of their
loads intact.
The episode began Joe Incardona's active involvement in
the political side of the beer business. His growing
role in the Pennsylvania beer industry's lobby took him
to the nation's capital, where he testified on a
proposed free trade bill before the House Committee on
Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Joe was also elected
president of the Pennsylvania Malt Beverage Distributors
Association. During his six-year term, he helped draft
important beer industry legislation, working closely
with Pennsylvania's governor and Congressional
representatives.
In 1958, Inco Beverage got a major break. Joe Incardona
was awarded the franchise for Carling's Black Label,
which would soon become the bestselling beer in the
1960s. In 1962, Joe Incardona received the Schlitz Hall
of Fame Award, honoring him as a top Schlitz
distributor. That accolade recognized a standard of
excellence that's still winning industry awards for the
company today.
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Inco Beverage saw
tremendous growth during the 40s, when
bartenders looked a lot more formal than they do
today, and a bottle of beer sold for 20 cents. |
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By 1958, Inco had once again outgrown its home. The
Incardonas moved the business to a 4,000 square foot
warehouse on Bridge Street. The company now had 11
employees. Demonstrating his knack for anticipating
important changes in the industry, Joe Incardona became
the distributor for the relatively unknown Miller
Brewing Company. It was a gamble that didn't really pay
off until 10 years later, when Miller created the light
beer category with its Miller Lite product. Miller
Lite's popularity, and Joe Incardona's acquisition of
the Stroh's franchise, once again caused Inco's
warehouse to nearly burst at the seams.
This time, Joe recognized the need for a more dramatic
expansion, and built a 12,000 square foot facility in
Richland Township, a Johnstown suburb.
They moved into the new warehouse in February 1976.
Another 10,000 square feet of space was added. By 1979,
Inco's sales had reached more than one million cases
annually. The company became one of the first
distributors in Central Pennsylvania to computerize.
The 1980s brought substantial changes at Inco. Rick
Rizzo, son of Nancy Incardona Rizzo and grandson of Joe
Incardona, joined the company, and applied his business
acumen and MBA-school training to help modernize
operations. In 1985, the warehouse was expanded again.
In 1988, the Coors Brewing Company sought out Joe
Incardona to become their distributor for a five-county
area in Western Pennsylvania. The immediate success of
Coors in Pennsylvania fueled exceptional growth for Inco
Beverage. Crown Imports, Mark Anthony Brands, High Falls
Brewing, Pabst Brewing, E & J Gallo, and Spoetzl Brewery
all chose Inco to represent their brands.
Today, Inco Beverage has over 90 employees and serves more than 2000 retail and wholesale accounts in fifteen counties throughout Western Pennsylvania.
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Inco
Beverage's third location, on
Railroad St. in downtown Johnstown |
In 1958, Inco Beverage
moved to a 4,000 square foot warehouse on Bridge
St. in Johnstown. The company also ran an
adjacent Squirt soda bottling plant. |
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Joe
Incardona testifying before the House Committee
on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce about the "Beer Wars" of the
1940s in Pennsylvania |
In 1978, Inco Beverage
moved to its present location in Richland
Township. The facility, originally 12,000 square
feet in size, now occupies just over 70,000
square feet of space. That includes 10,000
square feet of temperature-controlled space,
which ensures the freshness of our products. |
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| Joe Incardona
served as president of the Pennsylvania Malt
Beverage Distributors Association for six years.
During his term, he helped draft numerous pieces
of important legislation for the beer industry
in Pennsylvania. |
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