Gold Star Foods, a portfolio company of Castle Harlan, has acquired A&R Wholesale Distributors. This is the third add-on acquisition made by Gold Star under Castle Harlan’s ownership. Castle Harlan acquired Gold Star, a food distributor to K-12 schools, from Prospect Partners in April 2014. Prospect Partners acquired Gold Star in October 2007.
A&R Wholesale Distributors is a distributor of food and food related products to public schools, colleges and universities, healthcare institutions, and hospitality, theme parks and other institutional food entities. The company’s products include frozen foods, snacks & beverages, USDA processed commodities, grocery and pantry items, paper & supplies, and various other sundries. 
In July of 2012, A&R moved into a 128,000-square-foot state-of-the-art distribution center located in Anaheim, CA. The company is led by CEO Jeff Kuriel and was founded in 1986 (www.aandrfoods.com).
Gold Star is a food distributor to K-12 schools in California, Arizona and Nevada. The company serves 380 school districts comprised of more than 3,500 schools, enabling them to provide students meals through federal and state programs for breakfasts and lunches that include program-approved healthy ingredients. Gold Star purchases products from more than 600 food manufacturers and farms, and sells over 6,000 products comprised of refrigerated, frozen and dry menu items as well as fresh bread and produce. The company, led by CEO Sean Leer, is headquartered near Los Angeles in Ontario, CA (www.goldstarfoods.com).
A&R will continue to be led by Jeff Kuriel and will operate from its facility in Anaheim until the operation transitions to Gold Star’s Ontario, CA headquarters. At that time, Mr. Kuriel will join Gold Star’s leadership team.
“Like Gold Star, A&R is experienced in dealing with the complexities of the USDA Child Nutrition Program and helps to create meals that adhere to USDA nutritional standards and commodity guidelines,” said David Pittaway, Senior Managing Director of Castle Harlan. “The combination of Gold Star and A&R will allow customers to benefit from access to new product categories, an increased number of SKUs, and higher service levels.”
Gold Star continues to expand, both organically and through acquisitions, with the goal of becoming the leading value-added services provider dedicated to school nutrition programs across the country. Prior to the A&R acquisition, Castle Harlan had invested more than $40 million in Gold Star during the first quarter of 2017, bringing its total investment to more than $60 million over the past year, to support the growth of the company. A portion of this capital was used to fund the March 2017 acquisition of Phoenix-
based Colyar Technology Solutions, a designer, developer and marketer of food distribution and compliance management software (www.colyar.com), as well as the construction of a 188,000-square-foot food distribution center in Dixon, CA which opened last summer. The Dixon warehouse supports Gold Star’s expansion in Northern California which began in August 2014 when the company acquired Fairfield, CA-based Ed Jones Food Services.
“The acquisition of Colyar furthered Gold Star’s strategic shift into providing technology-enabled national school nutrition solutions to both states and local school districts,” said Patrick Zyla, Vice President of Castle Harlan. “Colyar’s web-based tools help to simplify the complex regulatory burdens faced by food providers in lunchrooms across the nation. Colyar assists in managing federal dollars by providing a platform to manage the application and administration of claims to the USDA, providing a link among local school districts, states and the USDA.”
Castle Harlan makes control investments in middle-market companies in North America, Europe and, together with CHAMP Private Equity, in Australia. Castle Harlan has participated in eight private equity funds, five in the United States and three in Australia. Those funds totaled approximately $6 billion in capital commitments. Castle Harlan was founded in 1987 and is based in New York (www.castleharlan.com).
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | June 15, 2017
