What does distribution look like in Foodservice?
Your primary distributor focus depends on whether your product is designed for back of house use (ingredients for kitchens) or for front of house use (pre-packaged items by the register; chips, protein bar, beverage, etc.)
The Foodservice distribution landscape is diverse, and there are many players; many operators use multiple.
For back of house, the primary distributors include Sysco, US Foods, PFG and GFS.
There are also major regional players like Shamrock, Ben E. Keith, Baldor to name a few.
For pre-packaged goods, the primary distributors include Vistar, Coremark, McLane, UNFI.
Some distributor facts:
The ‘by the book minimum’ to stock a product is moving 5 cases per week per SKU through that specific warehouse
-Dot Foods is the largest redistributor and delivers to all distributors multiple times a week
-Each major broadliners has a ‘national account team’ that handles their largest customers. Get in contact with them ??
-Most distributors have 1 to 2 trade shows a year. These are a great way to meet their customers AND many of the distributor sales rep in one day!
Below is an image of some of our major distributor partners Rooted Food Sales.
What are your favorite distributors to work with?