His Business Insight in 1976 Just Paid Off for $29B

The nation's largest food distributor just ordered up its biggest deal ever, though Wall Street analysts seem to think Sysco overpaid. The company said Monday it will acquire restaurant supplier Jetro Restaurant Depot in a deal valued at $29 billion, reports Reuters. Sysco shares fell about 12% on the news. Restaurant Depot runs a wholesale cash-and-carry warehouse model—think bulk food, drinks, and packaging, paid for upfront—across roughly 166 locations in 35 states, a higher-margin business that complements Sysco's delivery network to restaurants, hospitals, and hotels.

Sysco CEO Kevin Hourican said the deal should mean more choice and lower prices for small restaurants, adding there is "minimal overlap" between the two firms' customers, a likely nod to antitrust concerns that sank Sysco's attempted US Foods takeover in 2015. However the new deal shakes out, the Wall Street Journal notes that it calls attention to the remarkable success story of Restaurant Depot and its "reclusive" 94-year-old founder, Nathan "Natie" Kirsch.

The native of South Africa opened his company in 1976 in a Brooklyn warehouse as Jetro Cash & Carry after studying the restaurant-supply market and realizing it didn't really exist. "We literally have no competition," he told students at the London Business School in 2011. The company generated about $16 billion in revenue in 2025.