A restaurateur with six locations in Texas slid his purchasing report across the table: the same frozen seafood, priced by his Asian-food distributor at a healthy markup over the export quote. “Can I capture that spread myself?” He can — after understanding which layer of the supply chain he currently occupies, and what climbing one layer costs.
Three routes: upstream is cheaper and heavier
- Broadline distributors: Sysco, US Foods — full-line food-service suppliers delivering frozen, fresh, dry and sundries in one truck, with terms, returns and food-safety files included; chains leverage GPO pricing, and Asian lines keep widening (Sysco runs a dedicated Asian-restaurant arm). The cost: stacked margins and thin selection in specialty items
- Asian-food distributors: import specialists acting as importer of record with their own warehouses — Chinese condiments, specialty frozen goods, dry goods all deep; better prices than broadline, still carrying importer and wholesale layers
- Direct import: you (or your agent) as the importer, pulling containers from Asian origins at export prices, both middle layers saved — and clearance, compliance, cold chain and inventory all become your problems
The volume threshold for going direct
Direct importing runs high-fixed, low-variable: entry documents, compliance setup and per-container operations barely move with volume, so scale is what thins them. Three signals:
- A single item’s annual usage fills containers or steady LCL: single stores rarely qualify; chains pooling purchases or a central kitchen usually do
- Somewhere to put it: direct import lands in bulk — freezer capacity and capital tied up, with inventory turns stretching from a distributor’s week to months
- Concentration: import your few highest-volume staples and keep the long tail with distributors — the mature end-state is nearly always the hybrid
The compliance you inherit
Becoming the importer inherits the importer’s duties: FDA facility linkage and Prior Notice per shipment, FSVP supplier verification — the full frame in the three gates — and quarantine items per the APHIS article. Frozen staples ride reefer discipline, and seafood carries its own spec-and-HACCP world.
Where SKYCARGO fits
SKYCARGO INC runs the direct-import lane for restaurant groups — consolidation at Asian origins, reefer freight, entry with our IOR where wanted, and cold-chain warehousing that receives in bulk and releases to your kitchens on schedule. Bring the purchasing report and we will mark which lines justify the climb; rates on request. (Personal shipments: Shiptw.)
Distributor terms and import requirements vary; current publications govern. Reference only.
