When you are sitting in a restaurant eating your favourite mediterranean food or even Turkish food, do you ever wonder how the restaurant manager or head chef managed to procure such foods? food distributors such as restaurant food suppliers play an important but largely unseen role in our society.

They distribute wholesale foods to many places such as the big supermarket chains, fast-food places and restaurants. A restaurant manager or head chef could not simply go to food wholesalers to purchase the food needed, because the quantities would be too big. But food distributors can purchase in large quantities, then break these down into the smaller quantities needed by niche markets such as restaurants.

They also distribute non-food items such as plastic plates and cups, paper napkins and other essentials that the general public often take for granted. Such things are made and packed in huge quantities that would far surpass the needs of a single restaurant or even a chain of them. But by using a food distributor such places are able to access their needs in smaller quantities more suitable for them.

Buying through a food distributor allows smaller markets to compete financially with the larger chains. Smaller markets may even team up together so that their buying power can be extended and this also gives them a more competitive edge. Otherwise they could never offer their customers the kinds of prices that the big supermarket stores do. Smaller markets such as restaurants need not buy a whole truckload of food when they team up with others in the chain.

Food service distribution companies need not be huge companies; often they work out of just one truck for a niche market such as a restaurant or a private fast food place like a fish and chip shop. However there are larger companies that have many large trucks on the road and these would tend to service those larger supermarket chains.

Tags: Distribution, Food, services