How to choose a food distributor for your restaurant

To choose a food distributor, ask every vendor the same questions about delivery, fees, credit and pricing. Then price your top 20 items from at least two vendors on the same unit, such as per pound or per each. Run that test for two weeks before you move most of your order.

Every vendor name and price below is made up for the examples.

Six kinds of restaurant food suppliers

Most restaurants buy from more than one of these.

Broadline distributors

A broadline distributor (a "broadliner") carries a little of everything: dry goods, frozen food, dairy, meat, produce, paper goods and cleaning supplies. It delivers by truck on set days and usually asks for a minimum order. You get a sales rep. Heartland Foodservice and Broadview Food Co. are the broadliners in our examples.

One truck can bring most of your order, and many offer credit terms. Watch the minimum, any delivery or fuel fee, and items priced "at market," which can change weekly.

Specialty distributors

A specialty distributor sticks to one category, like Valley Fresh Produce, Prairie Meats, Riverside Dairy or Old Town Bakery. They often carry more choice in that category, such as several grades of tomato, and their staff can tell you what is good this week. Each one adds another minimum and another invoice to check.

Broadline vs specialty distributor: which do you need?

Often both. A common setup is one broadliner for most of the order and a specialty vendor or two for what guests notice most, like produce or meat. Add one when the quality or price in that category is worth the extra delivery.

Club stores

A club store is a membership warehouse like Club Wholesale. You pay a yearly fee to join and pay for each trip at the register. There is no minimum order in the store, which helps when you need a small amount the same day. Pack sizes are often smaller than foodservice cases, so compare the price per pound, and count the staff time and fuel for the trip.

Cash-and-carry

A cash-and-carry is a wholesale warehouse for businesses, like Crossroads Wholesale, with foodservice pack sizes. You pick the items and load your own vehicle. Many ask for proof that you are a business before they give you a card, so call ahead. It suits same-day restocks and owners who would rather drive than meet a minimum.

Online suppliers

Online suppliers such as Backline Supply ship by parcel carrier. They tend to fit disposables, smallwares, shelf-stable food and equipment. Delivery takes days, and shipping is often free only above a set order size.

Local farms

A farm, or a group of farms, can sell you seasonal produce, eggs and sometimes meat. Orders often go by text, and the invoice may be on paper. Supply changes week to week, so keep a backup for anything on the menu all year.

No kind of vendor is cheapest for everything. Prices differ by item and by account, and many change week to week. So the test below compares items one at a time.

Nine questions to ask before you open an account

Ask every vendor the same questions and write the answers in one place. There is a sheet to copy after the list.

1. Delivery days and order cutoffs

The order cutoff is the latest time you can order for the next delivery. Ask which days they deliver to your address, the delivery window and the cutoff for each day.

Then match it to your week. If Heartland delivers Tuesday and Friday with a 3 pm cutoff the day before, your Thursday count has to be done by 3 pm Thursday. Fewer deliveries mean more food on your shelves, and that food is money you have already spent.

2. Minimums and delivery fees

A minimum is the smallest order a vendor will deliver, set in dollars or in cases. Ask what the minimum is and what happens below it. Some vendors charge a small-order fee and some will not deliver at all. Ask whether a fuel or delivery charge is added to every order.

Say Valley Fresh Produce has a $150 minimum and your produce order comes to $120. You either pay the fee or add $30 of product you may not need. Neither cost shows up in the price per pound, so write it next to the vendor's name. See vendor order minimums for how to plan around them.

3. Credit terms

Credit terms say how long you have to pay after delivery. "Net 7" means the invoice is due 7 days after its date, and "Net 30" means 30 days. "COD" means cash on delivery, so you pay the driver. Ask what terms you qualify for, what late fees apply and whether paying by card adds a fee. Terms give you time to sell the food before the bill is due.

4. The rep

Your sales rep is your contact for prices and problems. Ask who your rep is and how fast they usually answer. Ask who handles credits. A credit is money taken off your bill when an item arrives short, damaged or wrong. A good rep tells you about a price change before you find it on the invoice.

5. Substitution policy

A substitution is a different product sent when the one you ordered is out of stock. Ask whether they call or text before they substitute, whether you can refuse a substitute at the door, and how it is priced. Ask if you can mark some items "no substitutes."

Say you order a case of six #10 cans of crushed tomatoes (a #10 can holds a little over 3 quarts), and a different brand arrives at a higher case price. You want to catch that before the driver leaves.

6. Contract vs market pricing

A contract price is agreed for a set period. Some contracts are "cost-plus," meaning you pay the vendor's cost plus an agreed markup. A market price moves with the market, often weekly. It is common on produce, meat, seafood and eggs.

Ask which of your items are on contract, when the contract ends and how market prices are set. Ask how you can see this week's price before you order. A contract price that was good when you signed can fall behind other vendors' prices a few months later.

7. Catch weight items

Catch weight means you pay for the actual weight, because no two cases weigh exactly the same. A case of chicken breast might be sold as "about 40 lb" at $2.89 per lb. If the case weighs 38.6 lb, the invoice says $111.55 (38.6 x $2.89). Ask which items are catch weight and whether the invoice shows the real weight of each case. Compare these items per pound, because the case price changes with every delivery. Our catch weight guide shows how to check it on an invoice.

8. Invoice format

Ask how invoices arrive. Some vendors post them on their website, some email a PDF, and some hand you paper with the delivery. Ask how credits show up. You will check each invoice against what came off the truck, and your bookkeeper needs every one. Paper is the easiest to lose.

9. An online ordering site

Ask whether they have a website or app for ordering, and whether it shows your account's prices or a general list price. A site that shows your own price lets you check it before you order, instead of finding it on the invoice.

Copy this vendor question sheet

Keep at least two vendors for your top items

For each of your top items, keep a second vendor you can order it from, even if most of your order goes to one. When the first runs out or raises a price, you already have an account somewhere else. A price is also easier to question when you can show your rep another vendor's number for the same item.

Minimums make it sensible to keep most of the order with one vendor. Move only the items where the price gap is large and stays large.

The two-week test: your top 20 items on the same unit

A spreadsheet or a sheet of paper is enough.

1. List your top 20 items by dollars. Add up last month's spend on each item from your invoices and sort by dollars, rather than by how often you order. These items are where a price gap adds up fastest.
2. Pick one unit for each item. Per pound for meat, cheese and produce sold by weight. Per each for eggs, buns or avocados sold by the count. Per gallon for oil and milk. Use the same unit for every vendor.
3. Get each vendor's price on the same weekday, two weeks in a row. Use your account price on the vendor's website, a written quote from the rep, or the club store shelf price. Write the pack size next to each price.
4. Convert each price to your unit. Price per unit = case price ÷ (packs in the case x size of each pack). More pack math is in how to compare prices across your food vendors.
5. Add the cost of getting it. Count delivery fees and anything you add to reach a minimum. For a pickup trip, count the time and fuel. A low price that needs a drive across town can cost more in the end.
6. Decide item by item. Look at both weeks. A vendor that wins only one week may have been running a one-week deal.

A worked example

Say you use 40 lb of shredded mozzarella a week. Here are the week one prices.

For Broadview, $99.00 ÷ (6 x 5 lb) = $99.00 ÷ 30 lb = $3.30 per lb.

Broadview is 12 cents a pound below Heartland. At 40 lb a week, that is $4.80 a week, or about $250 a year, on one item.

The club bag is 2 cents a pound below Heartland, which comes to 80 cents a week. If a cook spends 90 minutes on the club run at $18 an hour, the trip costs $27 before fuel. For cheese alone, the trip costs far more than it saves.

In week two, Broadview's case goes to $104.40, which is $3.48 per lb. Now Heartland is lower. One week of numbers would have pointed you the wrong way. That is why the test runs for two weeks, and why the prices are worth checking again every month.

Copy this test sheet

If you belong to a buying group

A buying group, also called a group purchasing organization (GPO), pools the buying power of many restaurants to get better prices from suppliers. Groups such as Dining Alliance offer negotiated pricing and manufacturer rebates, and some are free to join. Savings claims like "15 to 25%" come from the groups themselves and are not independently checked (FSR Magazine, as of October 2026).

Keep running the test anyway. A group price is set for a period, and your other vendors' prices keep moving.

How RestaurantMate runs this comparison for you

RestaurantMate connects the vendors you choose and compares them on the same unit.

• Vendors with a website connect with your own login, which is stored privately and used only to sign in to that vendor. The RestaurantMate device, a small box in your restaurant, signs in overnight from your restaurant's internet and refreshes your account prices.
• Vendors that only email invoices send them to your RestaurantMate inbox, an address like yourname@mail.rmate.ai. Their prices come from those invoices and price sheets, so they are as current as the last one.
• A farm with paper receipts can be added too, from a photo of each receipt.

Each item then shows every vendor's price per pound, per ounce or per each, worked out from the vendor's own pack size. If a pack size is missing, RestaurantMate asks you once and does not guess. If you belong to a buying group, you can see whether your group price is still the best one on the day you order.

When it is time to order, send your order to every vendor's online cart from one place. RestaurantMate fills each cart and checks every line, so you can review and check out.

If we haven't connected one of your vendors yet, we build it for you, usually within days.

Try it with the vendors you already use. Each location is free for 60 days, then $99 a month. No card is needed to start.

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