Buying a food distribution business in Tampa Bay

• Exclusive or long-standing supplier agreements, in writing, with brands customers ask for by name.
• Many customers, careful credit checks and little bad debt.
• Tight, well-planned delivery routes, so each truck makes many stops a day.
• A well-run cold chain (keeping food cold door to door): temperature monitoring and logs, reliable refrigeration, and backup power for hurricanes.
• A clean inspection history with the state and the FDA, and no recalls.
• Low spoilage and shrink (product lost to damage, theft or errors), tracked by product, with slow sellers dropped.
• Buyers and salespeople who know the customers and suppliers.
• Some customers on standing orders that go out weekly without a sales call.

• Supplier agreements: exclusivity, territory, termination and consent to a sale. Many can be ended on short notice, so talk to the main suppliers before you commit.
• How much rides on the biggest customers, and how many are restaurants that could close or switch suppliers.
• Overdue customer bills and past bad debts. Small restaurants and stores can be slow to pay.
• Inspection reports, recalls, customer complaints, and temperature logs for the coolers and trucks.
• Age and condition of coolers, freezers, trucks and their refrigeration units, and what breaks most often.
• An inventory count, with expired or nearly expired stock written off before the price is set.
• Fuel, insurance and driver costs, and driver turnover.
• For importers, customs records, tariffs and how long goods take to arrive.
• For produce, whether growers and shippers have been paid. Under PACA, unpaid sellers hold trust rights over a dealer's produce, inventory and receivables (money customers owe).

• Which brands are exclusive to you, and can those agreements be transferred?
• How much of your business comes from your top ten customers?
• What happens if a cooler fails, or the power goes out after a hurricane?
• What did your last state and FDA inspections find?
• How much product do you throw away each month?
• How do you decide which customers get credit?
• Do any of your suppliers sell directly to your customers?

Tampa Bay, as we draw it, runs from Citrus County south through Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough, and east into Polk: Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Brandon, Wesley Chapel, Brooksville, Inverness, Lakeland and Winter Haven. Tampa is the business center, with Port Tampa Bay, Tampa International Airport, the University of South Florida and MacDill Air Force Base, home to the headquarters of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. Financial services, insurance and health care employ many people, and the Gulf beaches of Pinellas bring tourists and seasonal residents.

Polk County sits on Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando and has become a center for warehouses and distribution, alongside its older citrus and phosphate industries. To the north, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus are more suburban and rural, with many retirees. Home service companies, the building trades, medical practices and auto businesses all have a deep customer base across the region.

Hurricane Helene's storm surge in September 2024 and Hurricane Milton two weeks later both hit the region hard. Flood zones and insurance costs now matter in any deal near the water. Ask how the business came through those storms, what it claimed, and whether its building sits in a flood zone.

The labor market is deep by Florida standards, though skilled tradespeople can still be hard to find. New homes have pushed north and east into Pasco and eastern Hillsborough, and along Interstate 4 in Polk, bringing demand for services with them. Coastal Pinellas is more seasonal than inland Tampa or Lakeland. The bay itself shapes a service company's territory: crossing a bridge at rush hour can turn a short distance into a long drive, so look at where the customers actually are.