In Boulder Colorado last summer we ate at a very good restaurant on a night that they had a price fixe menu with wine pairings.  The wine was being poured by a young man who was a very specialized wine distributor.  He bought wine from small vineyards in the Piedmont area of Italy and sold it to fancy restaurants in Colorado and he was making a living at it.

I used to think that because of the internet, distribution was not a growth industry anymore.  And certainly when the producers or the consumers are huge they don’t need the services of a middleman so big distributors are dying.  Proctor and Gamble don’t need distributors.  And neither does Walmart.  But a small restaurant in Boulder Colorado that wants a unique wine list does.  And so does a small wine producer in the Piedmont.

Not just wine.  What about cheese from New Hampshire, specialty eggs from Georgia, bananas from Costa Rica.  In India they grow more than 30 types of rice.  As far as I know only one of them, Basmati, is distributed and promoted in the US.  If I was young and looking for a business to be in I’d seriously look at specialty distribution.  It has a low barrier to entry and very high potential rewards.