Dive Brief:
- Gordon Food Service, a food distribution company, is opening six Gordon Food Service Stores in the greater Houston area with four slated to open Tuesday and two at an unspecified time in the future, according to a Monday press release.
- The stores, which will serve local restaurants, food operators and the public, will feature “chef-quality” food and offer an assortment of packaged and fresh produce.
- Separately, the company recently teamed up with recipe operating system meez on a tool called Gordon Culinary Pro that enables chefs and culinary teams to create and organize recipes.
Dive Insight:
Gordon Food Service noted that much of the packaged and fresh food at the upcoming stores will be prepared on-site.
Each location will occupy about 25,000 to 30,000 square feet with “with a modern, fresh décor and easy to navigate layouts for quick shopping,” per the announcement.
The stores will feature a large seasonal produce department, fresh meats, meal solutions including grab-and-go options and 15 varieties of popcorn. They will also have wholesale walk-in customer coolers housing cases of produce, meats and dairy items, as well as tortillerias making fresh tortillas daily.
The family-operated company is aiming to employ an average of 40 workers for each facility.
The company’s website has the six upcoming stores in Texas as its only ones in the state. Gordon Food Service is looking to grow in a state with a stiff grocery competitor: H-E-B. The fan-favorite grocer has several locations in the Houston metropolitan area.
Gordon Food Service, which has been operating for more than 125 years, has a presence in more than a dozen states and Canada. Last September, Gordon Food Service opened a 27,000-square-foot store in Memphis, Tennessee, with features similar to the ones announced for the upcoming Houston locations.
Gordon Culinary Pro aims to help streamline planning in the kitchen by foodservice operators. The tool allows users to view theoretical food costs, track recipes and ingredients as well as share photos and videos of recipes for staff training.
“Partnering with meez, and leveraging technology in innovative ways, we can give our customers the precision and flexibility of exact weights and measures, paired with the ability to order and purchase those required products in a cost-efficient, straightforward way," Tommy Gordon, North American director of digital products and services at Gordon Food Service, said in the meez announcement.
The company noted in the Houston store openings announcement its free wholesale loyalty program, called Gordon Go!, allows businesses and nonprofit customers to earn points that can be spent like cash or redeemed for $1,000 checks. It also offers same-day in-store pickup and same-day delivery.
The company was among the retailers listed as clients of Instacart’s newly launched business-to-business service.
