Sumner, Wash.-based wholesale food distributor Northern Sales Company Inc. has moved its Spokane-area facility into larger quarters in Spokane Valley from a temporary facility in Airway Heights.

Shaun Collins, a Spokane-based territorial sales manager, says the facility now is located in a 2,400-square-foot leased warehouse at 2501 N. Farr. The company first set up a temporary distribution operation here in February in an Airway Heights storage unit.

Northern Sales focuses on distributing bread products to supermarkets. It carries Dave's Killer Bread products, Ole Mexican Foods Inc. tortillas, and Papa Pita products. The new distribution center here serves about 70 accounts for grocery-store deliveries in the greater Spokane and Coeur d'Alene market, Collins says. Collins' territory also includes Eastern and Central Washington, North Idaho, and Montana.

Collins says the company recently hired four employees, and a total of 12 people now work full time at the distribution facility here.

The Spokane facility is used for warehousing and loading and unloading of products that are brought to Spokane. He says the Spokane operation currently is leasing trucks for deliveries.

"We are rapidly growing," Collins says about the distribution facility.

Northern Sales provides distribution services in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Alaska. It operates distribution centers in Juneau, Anchorage, Ketchikan, Sitka, and Kodiak, Alaska; Kent, Wash.; Boise, Idaho; and Missoula, Mont. Additionally, the company has smaller depot facilities in Fairbanks, Alaska; La Grande, Ore.; and Kalispell, Great Falls, Bozeman, Butte, Billings, and Helena, Mont.