Longtime Food Distributor Brings on ‘Grab-And-Go’

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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis Fruit and Piazza Produce has acquired a young Noblesville-based company that makes "grab-and-go" foods. IF&P Foods LLC says all Cibus Fresh operations and its 15 employees will remain. The food distributor says the addition of Cibus Fresh, founded last year by Kurt Layer and Bill Pitrelli, will help meet "an unprecedented rise in demand" for offerings including packaged sandwiches, wraps, flat breads, salads, snack packs and parfait cups.
The acquisition, which closed late last month, includes the 11,000 square-foot Cibus Fresh kitchen facility in Hamilton County, which is U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected and Federal Grant of Inspection-certified. More than 60 varieties of packaged convenience foods will be added to the longtime distributor’s options as a result of adding Cibus Fresh.
IF&P Foods Chief Executive Officer Greg Corsaro says "by combining Cibus Fresh’s unique approach to fresh convenient foods with our extensive expertise in produce and specialty foods distribution, we’re primed to exceed our customers’ expectations with new offerings, quality and speed of delivery."
IF&P, which was formed more than 20 years ago with the merger of Indianapolis Fruit and Piazza Produce, has some 800 employees, most of which are in Indiana. It is not disclosing the price of the Cibus Fresh acquisition.