Membership Requirements

Any company that is a distributor or dealer of commercial food service equipment and/or supplies that meets the following membership criteria may apply for membership.

• Must be located in a commercial location.
• Maintains a business operation, which includes office space and showroom or warehouse that is a minimum total of 5,000 square feet, carry a minimum inventory of $300,000 of food service equipment and/or supplies at any given time and is available to the public. This may include categories of business models such as Full Service distributors/dealers with showrooms; Cash and Carry distributors/dealers; Design/Contract distributors/dealers; Chain Logistics distributors/dealers; Catalogue and Internet distributors/dealers or others based upon meeting all the criteria included in the FEDA membership requirements contained herein.
• Business must have purchased $3,000,000 of food service equipment or supplies in the last 12 months on a direct basis from at least seven (7) foodservice equipment & supplies manufacturers.
• Employs professional sales representatives who can provide the technical assistance required by the customer.
• Provides delivery service, set-up and demonstration of new equipment.
• Extends credit to the customer.
• The business shall not be owned wholly or in part by any end user customer or owned in part by an entity owned by an end user customer. If the company is owned wholly or in part by another company, the name of the company and the nature of its business must be supplied to the association with the application for review by the Board Officers.
• If an applicant is owned by a parent company; the shareholders of the parent company may be a Private Equity Group, Conglomerate or other Umbrella type organization / investor as long as those entities are not involved in business activities that the FEDA board officers considers inconsistent with the mission of FEDA such as, but not limited to, food distributors, end users of foodservice equipment or food service equipment manufacturers. Additionally, if a current member of FEDA is involved in business activities which the FEDA board officers considers inconsistent with the mission of FEDA, the continued membership of said FEDA member shall be reviewed by the board officers.
• Business must have been in continuous operation for a minimum of 36 months prior to making application. When a member's ownership changes, the association must be notified and the new ownership must meet all the existing membership requirements.
• A majority (51%) of the volume must be devoted to food service equipment and/or supplies of the distributor/dealer, and the sales must be to end users such as restaurant and institutions that prepare and serve food to the public or specific closed community such as business, school, government agency or other institutions with in-house dining.

All applications for membership must be sponsored by another dealer member who has been in good standing for at least 24 months who has reliable knowledge that the applicant meets all membership requirements.

Have Questions? 
Please submit questions about FEDA membership to Isabelle Piotrowski, Membership Manager at [email protected] or 224-293-6504.