B&A Food Brokers: From His Kitchen Table to 19 states
Andy Epstein is a food broker and philanthropist and knows what it’s like to start a company at a kitchen table.
The idea for his company, B&A Food Brokers, which turned 37, was started by his father. It’s a story of courage, dedication, and loyalty.
Epstein proposed to his dad, Ben, that they go into business together because when he graduated, he wanted to leave behind being a promoter for nightclubs like Xenon, Studio 54, and the Tunnel in New York City.
His father thought the food brokerage business would require a manageable amount of money, which, at the time, they didn’t have.
“He talked to a friend of his who owned the distribution company.
“It was called Louise Dairy Products. His friend’s name was Vinny Louise, and he told him to form a partnership. We’re going to do distribution, we’re going to do brokerage,” Epstein, CEO at B&A Food Brokers, shared in an interview with Abasto.
The company’s name, at the time, was “B&L Food Brokers.” The B is for Ben, from Ben Epstein, and the L is for Louise, the friend.
When Epstein graduated, his father asked his partner if it was time to bring Andy into the firm. The partner wasn’t sure, and they decided to part ways.
“My father said, OK, no problem. We’re going to split the firm. It’s soon enough; there’s no real profit here. So that day, we changed the L to A, to Andy, and became B&A Food Brokers,” Epstein said.
The office? His kitchen table in Brooklyn is where it all began.
Today, his success stories include hummus, salad, and goat cheese brands.
In addition, B&A Food Brokers is a successful business in 19 states and Washington, DC.
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Hispanic Market
B&A Food Brokers is interested in the Hispanic market. It sells to supermarket chains that serve the Hispanic community, such as CTowns.
“Currently, we don’t do much with Hispanic products as far as selling. I would love to get more involved in the market,” said Epstein, married to a woman from Peru.
For now, his closest approach to Hispanics as a businessman is being a chairman of the board of the Cristian Rivera Foundation focused on children’s health in the predominantly Puerto Rican Latino community, which fights a specific type of cancer: DIPG.
It is also part of the philanthropic division of Just Health Foundation’s CarePoint Health in Hudson County, New York, with a large Hispanic presence.
B&A Food Brokers presence:
Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
