Gilster-Mary Lee's Core Values

The Gilster family founded the Gilster-Mary Lee company in 1985 in and old flour mill, and began making cake mixes in the 1950’s. The current leaders of the company are great-nephews of the company’s founders. Thus, Gilster-Mary Lee has a long tradition of family values and quality products.

Private carrier Gilster Mary Lee is a leading food manufacturer. Headquartered in Chester, Illinois, the company produces over 8.000 different items across 500 different private label brands as well as its own Hospitality label. Gilster Mary Lee maintains 14 different manufacturing facilities and employs around 3,000 employees. The company owned truck fleet makes deliveries throughout the United States and Canada, leaving the distribution centers daily. Gilster Mary Lee products are also shipped around the world. The mission of Gilster-Mary Lee’s trucking fleet is to offer the best possible combination of quality, service and value.

While the company’s focus and size has changed dramatically since the turn of the 20th century, Gilster-Mary Lee still maintains the core values that have allowed the company to thrive for so long. In maintaining a strong private distribution fleet, the Gilster-Mary Lee company is much like a family. Its self-contained operations imbue the company with a core strength, as does its careful employee selection process. Respect, hard work, and punctuality define the values of the company and adherence to those values will make or break Gilster-Mary Lee’s future.