When Sam Ingardia was honorably discharged from the Navy in the early 1970s, he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do, but he knew he wanted to work for himself.

He went to work in the Southern California community of Costa Mesa where soon a vacant store front opened up next to his place of employment. “My father was in the shoe business but my uncles had a fruit stall in a produce market in Sicily and that sounded like something I could do.”

Soon thereafter, he and his brother, Joe, received some financial help from their dad and started The Produce Mart in a 2,400-square-foot storefront. Though it started as a 100 percent retail operation, the two Ingardia brothers soon attracted some restaurant wholesale business with their “stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” motto. Mr. Ingardia explained that then, as now, restaurants have to watch their bottom line very carefully.

From the beginning, the storefront name was a little bit of a misnomer as The Produce Mart also sold seafood and several other items. “We used to go to the Los Angeles produce market to get our produce and to San Pedro to get the seafood.  At that time all the fishermen would come in to San Pedro [CA] every day and unload there.”

By 1985, the company’s foodservice business had increased tremendously and the product line included dairy and many different frozen foods, as well as produce and seafood. “We decided to close the retail business and concentrate strictly on the foodservice industry,” Mr. Ingardia said.

At the same time, he started to look around for more space.  By 1989, the company had built a new building that was more than 10 times larger than their previous facility. Yet, it was full from day one. By this time, Ingardia Bros. Produce Inc. was its moniker. Though the firm sold more than produce, Mr. Ingardia said produce was how it made its reputation and it was and is the firm’s No. 1 product, so it remained on the company banner.  

The 1990s saw continued growth, so soon after the dawn of the new century, the company began planning for further expansion. Mr. Ingardia said they took their time to find the perfect place to build a state-of-the-art, HACCP-certified distribution center. In early 2008, Ingardia Bros. opened a new 65,000-square-foot facility in neighboring Santa Ana, CA. “We built the building the size it was so we could continue to grow,” he said.

And grow they have. Mr. Ingardia acknowledged that the recession caused some stagnation in sales from 2009 to 2011, “but we had good sales in 2012 and so far this year we have had record-breaking sales.”

He said those were some rough years because the firm deals exclusively with independent restaurants who had a difficult time weathering the recession. He explained that while many of their 1,500 active customers have multiple units in the four- to five-outlet range, none of them could be called chains. “When they get to be corporate, it’s time for them to look for another supplier,” he said.

Mr. Ingardia explained that Ingardia Bros. wants to supply these restaurants with many different items including produce, frozen foods, seafood and dairy.

He said when a restaurant starts to open many units and establishes a corporate structure, buying becomes more formal and the buyer tends to want to deal with different companies for each product. “That’s not the way we want to work,” he said.  

“The two most important things to us are number one service and quality, and number two yield on the product. That is very important to us and that is very important to the customers we want to deal with.”

Ingardia Bros. has 58 bobtail trucks that make deliveries in a five-country area stretching from San Diego to Los Angeles.  “Orange County and south is our major market and we also do well in the Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino counties). We go into Los Angeles mostly to service additional units of our existing customers.”

Sam Ingardia said one of the firm’s major keys to success is its loyal employee base.  “Some of our employees have been with us since the beginning and more than half of our 168 full-time employees have been with us over 20 years,” he said.

He calls his 11-member sales force — most of whom have been with the firm for many years — “the life line to our customers. I trust them very much.  Most of them previously held jobs in the restaurant trade.”  

Joe Ingardia, Sam’s older brother, is semi-retired though he still comes into the office a few days a week. And the two brothers also have employed several members of the next generation in the family firm.  Sam, in fact, hopes that the next generation does carry on the legacy he and his bother have achieved. But he is not yet ready to relinquish the reins.

 “I am too much of a control freak,” he said.  “I have delegated some things that occur on a daily basis, as well as hiring. But when it comes to the financial stuff, I am still in charge.  I have to make sure we continue to go in the right direction.”