Jul 14, 2004 12:23 PM, from staff and wire reports

Specialty food distributor Food Innovations Inc announced a newly secured national roll-out contract with US Foodservice, a subsidiary of international food service giant Royal Ahold.

The contract, cemented late in 2003 with US Foodservice’s Next Day Gourmet division, includes training its sales force of more than 4,600 representatives on selling the firm’s fresh, origin-specific food items—shipped within 24 hours, to thousands of restaurants in the United States.

Joe DiMaggio Jr, founder and chief executive officer of Food Innovations, said, “With our new roll-out contract, we have effectively eliminated all but one vendor: US Foodservice, which will in turn ship the almost 4,000 different items we supply.”

US Foodservice is the second-largest foodservice distributor in the United States, providing food and related products nationwide. Through Next Day Gourmet, it supplies restaurants with items including frozen foods and fresh vegetables.