Quality Custom Distribution, a fast-food industry supplier for the likes of Starbucks, Chick-fil-A and Chipotle, is moving its corporate headquarters to Texas from Irvine.
It joins a growing list of California firms moving headquarters operations to Texas, most notably Toyota USA’s relocation from Torrance three years ago. Other movers include Occidental Petroleum (from L.A.) and Jamba Juice (from San Francisco).
The company, a logistics unit of food-industry supply giant Golden State Foods, runs a nationwide chain of 19 distribution centers that warehouses and distributes food and supplies to individual chain restaurants. The new headquarters will initially be home to between 30 and 45 workers, both relocations and new hires. It is expected to be open by January.
A Quality Custom statement said the move “will maximize company efficiencies by placing multiple services, including finance, accounting, customer service and purchasing, into one location.”
Quality Custom is a food-delivery subsidiary of Golden State Foods, which started in 1947 as a meat supplier to Southern California restaurants and hotels. In the 1950s it won a curious new customer – the fledgling restaurant chain McDonald’s.
Things soon changed as that partnership helped Golden State Foods grow globally into an Irvine-based behemoth with $7 billion in revenues handling various industry functions from making food to warehousing and inventory management to stocking an estimated 120,000 restaurants.
The Quality Custom unit, as the name implies, handles some odd services for clients. Take a new warehouse in Fontana that opened last year with just one purpose: handling the needs of 300-plus Starbucks around Southern California.
In moving its corporate operations to Texas, Quality Custom felt a need to “better align our corporate resources with our business and provide enhanced support to our distribution centers and to our customers,” said Ryan Hammer, Quality Custom’s corporate vice president and president of Golden State Foods’ logistics operations, said in a statement. He came to the company from Texas-based PepsiCo Inc. two years ago.
Hammer added: “This centralization will enable us to continue to grow our distribution business and solidify our position as a dominant player in the food industry. We are looking forward to expanding within the Dallas area, which we chose due to its central location, large talent pool, and excellent business community overall.”