In 2013, NACD member companies generated $31.2bn in sales, a slight increase of two percent from the year before. The report also notes that NACD member companies are responsible for more than 155,000 direct and indirect jobs in the United States and hired 5.4 percent more workers than the previous year.

The statistics were released last week at the association's 43rd annual meeting.

NACD members operate in all 50 states through more than 1,800 facilities and make a delivery every 7.3 seconds. The average value of an individual shipment amounted to $7,270, maintaining the trend of increased shipment value over the last decade. Members have reduced their overall number of shipments while carrying more tonnage per shipment, bundling them to reduce cost and lower their environmental impact.

Incidents involving transportation saw largely positive results. Total incidents experiencing uncontrolled releases of product while storing, handling, loading or unloading within the companies' facilities significantly decreased to 29 compared to 123 the prior year, while the number of Department of Transportation 5800 submissions increased to 13 from 8 the previous year. Incidents involving transportation or delivery decreased slightly to 36 incidents, down from 39 in 2012.
Safety performance of the whole membership remained better than non-member companies in the Chemical and Allied Merchant Wholesale Industry (NAICS 42469) and nearly twice as good as all manufacturing combined, based on the most current data available.

Source: National Association of Chemical Distributors