Scrambling without Stanz, local restaurants to find new supplier as Raydia Food Group shutters

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- The impact is widespread as Stanz Foodservice closes its doors after more than a century.

Employees confirmed with ABC57 they're being shut down and laid off. It's also been a scramble without Stanz as local restaurant owners lose their local food supplier.

At Yellow Cat Cafe in South Bend, it was their sole supplier.

"Everybody has shopped at Stanz or eaten food that's come from Stanz if you live in South Bend," said owner Stacey Wilson. "Stanz has been almost exclusively our supplier all along."

Yellow Cat has been open since 2017, and Wilson says she saw the writing on the wall over the past several months as it became harder and harder to get restaurant basics from Stanz.

"It's been a scramble for a while," Wilson said. "We've never actually been informed that Stanz was closed by the company itself. We were informed from employees there, from customers, but we kind of knew it was coming."

ABC57 has also unsuccessfully reached out to Raydia to confirm the closure, and its website appears to be down. However, news from the company went out to employees last Friday, announcing Stanz, Troyer's, and B&B were all closing.

"There are people, and lots of them, who have been there for years and years," Wilson said.

PEGGS has been a downtown South Bend feature for almost 25 years, said owner Peg Dalton.

"Just really sad that it's going this way for all of those people, because they were a company with great integrity. It's just unfortunate," she said. "We've used [Stanz] the entire time we've been open... typically, throughout the years, about 60-40 with Stanz being our primary supplier."

Dalton said she's disappointed to see the local, family-owned foodservice company of more than a century go, just three years After a corporate buyout. She also says she hasn't heard from Raydia Food Group.

"That's unfortunate that that's how they handled it," Dalton said.

Restaurant owners also told ABC57 it's really rough for them to lose the local Stanz Self-Service Store; that convenience is gone. It's staying open until November, employees say, or until inventory runs out.