SAN FRANCISCO — GrubMarket announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Oregon and California-based JC Cheyne, a highly regarded fresh produce business that is widely known as the “wholesale house of the finest onions and potatoes in the Bay Area.” JC Cheyne currently sells over 70 different items, including almost every color, size, and grade of potatoes and onions, to a diverse group of over 80 retail, food service, and wholesale establishments and mom-and-pop shops, across California. They also take pride in having great relationships with their suppliers in Oregon’s Klamath Basin, Northwestern Washington, Idaho, and Mexico.
JC Cheyne was founded over 60 years ago by fresh produce veteran Jimmie Cheyne. Under his leadership, Jimmie built a culture of employee empowerment at the company, cultivating operational excellence across all levels of staff. Over the past several decades, JC Cheyne has been managed by Scott Fenters, whose 40-year produce career spans farming, running packing sheds, doing produce sales, and launching a potato packing house in Oregon. Today, JC Cheyne operates several stalls and a refrigerated warehouse at the Golden Gate Produce Terminal, one of Northern California’s largest and busiest produce terminals. The team’s attention to detail and quality enables JC Cheyne to rotate products quickly and optimize for freshness; product turnover averages less than three days. After the acquisition, the business will continue to be managed by its current accomplished leadership team.
“This company started through the hard work and vision of Jimmie Cheyne, who instilled in all of us the core philosophy to take care of our business and relationships the way we would want our partners to take care of us. I am proud of what we have built at JC Cheyne and the sterling reputation we have developed over the years through our commitment to treat everyone with respect and integrity. We are excited to join the GrubMarket team, which shares our family-oriented values and cares as much as we do about cultivating strong and lasting relationships with both suppliers and customers. We are also excited to leverage GrubMarket’s technology ecosystem to bring more potatoes and onions to GrubMarket’s end customers nationwide,” said Scott Fenters, owner of JC Cheyne.
Mike Xu, CEO of GrubMarket adds: “It is evident that Jimmie, and now Scott, have done a wonderful job steering JC Cheyne to the levels of success that it is seeing today. The company has an exceptional reputation in the Bay Area and has certainly earned the respect of its peers. Its highly diversified customer base, expertise in potatoes and onions, and proficiency in quick inventory turnover are a true testament to its strong business fundamentals. The entire JC Cheyne team treats each other like family, which aligns with GrubMarket’s commitment to taking care of our people and partners. With this acquisition, GrubMarket continues to strengthen our West Coast presence; I am thrilled to welcome JC Cheyne to the GrubMarket family.”
As a part of GrubMarket’s portfolio, JC Cheyne will utilize GrubMarket’s innovative and proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company’s software-as-a-service platform that provides food industry wholesalers and distributors with seamless financial management, powerful sales support, online ordering, precise inventory management, lot traceability, grower accounting, and automated routing and logistics, as well as Orders IO, GrubMarket’s custom branded mobile eCommerce solution.
About GrubMarket
Founded in 2014, CA-based GrubMarket is a technology enabler and digital transformer of the American food supply chain industry, and one of the largest private food tech companies in the U.S. As a first mover in the tech-enabled B2B food eCommerce space and a pioneer offering cutting-edge software-as-a-service solutions. GrubMarket uses technology to fundamentally transform the American and global food supply chain. GrubMarket operates in all 50 U.S. States and has a global presence in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, India, Mexico, South Africa, and Spain, with plans to expand further across the U.S., Canada, South America, Europe, Africa, and other parts of the world.
