George Bailey, boss at Bedford Falls’ building and loan in It’s a Wonderful Life, would appreciate the attitude at SYSCO Food Services of South Florida.

Mr. Potter, Bailey’s nemesis, definitely would not.

Even though they work for a large company, SYSCO employees not only receive turkeys at Thanksgiving, they get cash bonuses at Christmas as well.

Workers and their spouses are invited to a year-end holiday party complete with a sit-down dinner and an orchestra for dancing. This year’s event was held at the new Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Under the leadership of Joseph M. Sciortino, a charismatic man who says he loves God and food, SYSCO Food Services of South Florida still treats its 600 employees to perks that have dwindled during the recession.

“It’s these kinds of things that build an employee base that we want,” Sciortino said.

SYSCO, based in a north Miami industrial park, is a subsidiary of SYSCO Corp., the largest company in the nation’s $100 billion food-service industry.

The Houston-based parent owns a chain of companies that market and distribute products to the food-service industry from Newport, Maine, to Lincoln, Neb., to Walnut, Calif.

Sciortino, 60, joined SYSCO of South Florida as its chief executive officer in 1976 after almost 20 years as an executive with H.J. Heinz Co. in Pittsburgh.

He attributes SYSCO’s success to its employees. Sciortino, who is active in both his church and Miami’s Daily Bread Food Bank, shows his gratitude with a Thanksgiving worship service at the plant that features clergymen from three religions for his diverse work force.

“It’s important to let people know the significance of a holiday that they may not have celebrated in the past,” he said. “And it is important to let them know they are appreciated.”

SYSCO of South Florida has not been hard hit by the current recession, Sciortino said. “There have been no cuts here — we are hiring.”

One reason is that SYSCO provides a wide range of food and products needed by a broad base of customers — restaurants, hotels and cruise lines, as well as the food-service operations of schools, hospitals, jails and large private employers.

Thirty-foot-high shelves at SYSCO’s warehouse contain boxes of products ranging from croutons to coffee filters and paper cups to pasta. A huge cool room and freezer hold quantities of fresh fish and meat and produce.

“Everything you need to operate a restaurant you can get at SYSCO,” Sciortino said. “The one-stop-shop is a big new concept in the industry and the more astute business people recognize the advantages.”

Said Leonce Picot, owner of The Down Under and Casa Vecchia in Fort Lauderdale and La Vielle Maison in Boca Raton: “We couldn’t possibly purchase everything that we need on our own.” He employs four purchasing stewards to handle the constant restocking at his restaurants and buys some products from SYSCO.

John Brennan of the International Foodservice Distributors Association in Falls Church, Va., said SYSCO represents a continuing trend among food-service supply companies.

“Everyone is becoming more full service today. SYSCO is completely broad line and serves a wide range of the industry, and those not as broad will have more trouble today,” he said.

Brennan said SYSCO is by far the nation’s largest food products distributor, with 105 locations in the United States. Coming in second is Kraft Inc.’s Foodservice Group, with 46 locations and then Rykoff-Sexton Inc. with 31 sites in the country.

South Florida’s SYSCO serves about 6,000 client accounts, Sciortino said. The company’s name is an acronym for Systems and Services Co. and the business relies heavily on an elaborate computer system to track inventory, schedule deliveries and monitor billing.

But Sciortino said if the downturn continues to slash business at South Florida restaurants and hotels, SYSCO will suffer. “Obviously there is some correlation between our success and the success of the restaurant business.”

Some restaurateurs are finding it hard to keep busy right now. “There’s no question the recession is affecting everybody’s business,” Picot said.

“It’s tough in all segments of the food business. We’ve had to be more aggressive this year in marketing our Christmas business,” he said.

SYSCO does not break out individual earnings for its operating companies. But SYSCO spokeswoman Tony Spigelmyer said the South Florida operation is one of the company’s larger ones. She said SYSCO South Florida is expected to report revenues of $250 million for the year ending in June.

The parent company’s stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1970, was recently featured as a safe recession-time investment in a newsletter from Norman G. Fosback in Fort Lauderdale.

“Favorable demographic trends, competitive advantages, aggressive marketing and timely acquisitions should enable the company to achieve 15 percent to 20 percent average annual earnings growth over the next several years,” Fosback wrote.

Fifteen percent of SYSCO South Florida’s business is offshore, in the Caribbean and South America, Sciortino said. And half of that business is related to the servicing of 70 cruise ships. The company delivers seven semitrailers of food before the ships leave port. It ships carts of food to foreign ports for restocking.

During the Gulf war, the South Florida company stocked cruise liners for Desert Storm soldiers on leave.

Sciortino said he expects “moderate growth of 10 percent to 15 percent during the next year in an industry that probably won’t experience any growth at all.”

AT A GLANCE

About SYSCO Food Services of South Florida:

— BUSINESS: Markets and distributes food service products to restaurants, hotels, employee cafeteria operators, hospitals and cruise lines. Territory extends from Vero Beach to Key West to Englewood and also to the Caribbean and South America.

— HEADQUARTERS: 555 NE 185th St., Miami.

— TOP EXECUTIVE: Joseph M. Sciortino, chief executive officer and chairman.

— EMPLOYEES: 600

— STOCK: Traded on New York Stock Exchange, symbol SYY, closed at 44 7/8 on Friday.

— REVENUES: Not broken out from parent SYSCO Corp., which reported net earnings of $154 million on sales of $8.2 billion for the fiscal year ended June 29.