Press Releases

(LOS ANGELES) — Grocers Specialty Company (GSC) has signed a letter of intent to acquire the assets of Renton, Wash.-based Central Food Sales. The transaction is expected to close in 60 days.

GSC is the full-service gourmet and ethnic product distribution arm of Unified Western Grocers, Inc. The proposed acquisition of Central Food Sales marks the second specialty foods company GSC has pursued in the past 12 months. On May 29, 1999, GSC purchased Hayward, Calif.-based Gourmet Specialties, a $53 million full-service distributor of gourmet and ethnic specialty food products.

"We are extremely pleased to add Central Food Sales to GSC's growing family of companies," said Ted Gardner, President of Grocers Specialty Company and Senior Vice President, Non-Foods and Specialty Products, Unified Western Grocers. "This transaction strengthens our position as the premier distributor of gourmet, specialty and ethnic food items in the Western United States. By combining the strengths of Central Food Sales with Gourmet Specialties and GSC, we can now fully service retailers located anywhere on the Pacific Coast between the Mexican and Canadian borders."

Central Food Sales maintains an office and distribution center in Renton, Wash., and a sister company in Kirkland, Wash. In Fiscal 2000, the company expects sales to exceed $3 million.

Central Food Sales supplies specialty food products primarily to retailers in Washington and Oregon, but has a number of customers in Alaska, Idaho and Montana as well. Within its sales territory, (Washington, Oregon and Alaska), Central Food Sales is the exclusive distributor of the Manischewitz, Rokeach, Kedem and Best brands of quality kosher products.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for our company to grow and better serve the retail and kosher communities," said Sam McCullum, owner of Central Food Sales.

Gardner agreed. "This adds one more piece to our infrastructure, personnel and product mix that effectively supplies retailers throughout a 12-state region of the Western United States," he said.

According to Gardner, retailers also benefit from the combined purchasing power of GSC, Gourmet Specialties and Central Food Sales, as well as improved system efficiencies and other synergies that result from the combination of the three organizations.

Unified Western Grocers, Inc. is a retailer-owned grocery distributor that supplies independent retailers throughout the Western United States. Unified and its subsidiaries, which generated approximately $3.2 billion in sales during the 1999 fiscal year, offer retailers all the resources they need to compete in the supermarket industry from mainline grocery products to retail full-service distribution of Specialty, Ethnic, General Merchandise and Health & Beauty Care products.