Refrigerated Food Wholesale Distributor, 20-Year Houston Operation

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 20-year-old refrigerated food wholesale distribution business serving the Houston metro market from a 9,800 square foot industrial facility just outside city limits. The company moves refrigerated food products, including some proprietary brand items that provide a degree of product differentiation and pricing insulation versus commodity distributors. It runs lean with nine full-time employees and generates roughly $5m in revenue at an 11.8% EBITDA margin, which is healthy for a food distribution operation where mid-single-digit margins are common.

The business benefits from long-tenured customer and vendor relationships and a cost-advantaged location outside Houston's city limits. The facility is leased at $10,500 per month on a term secured through October 2035, and the listing references a new drive-in cooler built in 2026, meaning the physical cold chain infrastructure is fresh and unlikely to require near-term capex.

At a $4m asking price against $590k of EBITDA, the deal is priced at roughly 6.8x, which is aggressive for a sub-$1m EBITDA distributor with concentration and margin questions still unanswered. The proprietary brand angle and the sticky, reorder-driven nature of food distribution are the two things a buyer would underwrite hardest to justify getting anywhere near that number.