Down the hatch

Innovative Food Holdings is so good at what it does that its executives helped some of its suppliers achieve bigger success than they have had so far.

Certainly, Naples-based Innovative Food has successfully grown sales at double-digit annual percentage rates in the last three years by providing America's top chefs with the best ingredients it can find. Products range from heirloom tomatoes to sashimi-grade tuna, soft-shell crabs, foie gras and Italian gorgonzola.

But some of the 6,500 products the company provides to 30,000 chefs around the country come from small producers. As a result of distributing through Innovative Food, these purveyors of fine foods have achieved success they wouldn't have had otherwise.