After 13 years in the food industry, Greg Carlston saw a need for a different type of distribution in the Pacific Northwest. He felt there was a niche market to sell to jobbers or distributors in smaller quantities, helping them maximize their cash flow while increasing turns. This concept also benefited the manufacturers, who were able to get products to distributors in smaller quantities without lowering their own minimums. In 1983, Greg and Melody Carlston started Alpine Food Distributing, Inc. with their first product line, french fries. They quickly established Alpine as a key redistributor and with Greg’s reputation and contacts in the food industry, he had no problem getting business.

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The company started doing business in a small, leased warehouse that was mostly freezer space. Their core product line remained french fries but they began to add other ready-to-eat frozen food lines to their product offering. Five years after opening, they were profitable enough to purchase their first building and almost doubled the size of their operation. Two years later they were devastated by a four-alarm fire that wiped out their building and all of its contents. Not to be deterred by this setback, they quickly leased another space and got back to business within a day. They also began plans to rebuild at their former location.