Dao Distribution

Dao Distribution is a Bay Area-based foodservice distributor founded in 2024, specializing in supplying Thai, Lao, Vietnamese, and Pan-Asian restaurants with a comprehensive catalog of pantry staples, packaging, and back-of-house supplies. Operating out of South San Francisco, the company serves 300+ active restaurant accounts across a 65-mile delivery radius spanning nine counties, from Manteca to Santa Cruz and Daly City to Walnut Creek, with Monday through Friday delivery routes running three trucks and completing 100+ deliveries per day.

The company's catalog comprises 310+ SKUs built around the Thai kitchen pantry. Its core product category is rice, offered under the proprietary Chaao private-label brand — jasmine, sweet rice, Hom 23 aromatic long-grain, and Riceberry varieties, sold in 33 lb sacks. Chaao rice is milled directly through the founding family's operation in Thailand, drawing on multigenerational relationships with growers and mills. This direct-from-source supply chain eliminates importers and brokers, allowing Dao to offer pricing that competes with and often undercuts large broadline distributors such as Sysco and Restaurant Depot, and on jasmine rice can rival California-grown pricing.

Beyond rice, Dao stocks a full range of Thai and Pan-Asian pantry essentials including coconut milk, curry paste, fish sauce, palm sugar, and cooking oils. The company carries the leading brands that chefs are loyal to — Aroy-D, Chaokoh, Mae Ploy, Mae Anong, Tiparos, and Squid — ensuring kitchen operators can maintain brand consistency without sourcing from multiple suppliers. White Crane is a second house line carried exclusively by Dao on the West Coast, further reinforcing its direct-sourcing model.

The catalog extends well beyond food ingredients to cover the full back-of-house operation. Packaging offerings include clamshells, soup cups, lids, foil pans, kraft boxes, and paperboard containers in polypropylene, aluminum, and kraft formats suitable for delivery and takeout. Cleaning and sanitation supplies encompass dish chemicals, floor sanitizers, hand soap, paper towels, gloves, and PPE. Disposable cutlery and utensils — forks, spoons, chopsticks, and straws in takeout and full-service weights, including bamboo options — are available by the case. Trash and liner products round out the catalog, covering kitchen bags and heavy-duty contractor bags in a range of sizes and thickness ratings.

The founding family brings generations of rice milling and growing experience in Thailand combined with years of U.S. food distribution experience, giving Dao Distribution an unusual combination of deep supply-chain roots and operational agility. The business positions itself as a specialist alternative to broadline distributors, delivering one consolidated invoice and one truck for the entire kitchen. Its customer base includes well-established Bay Area restaurants such as Great Eastern and Cheung Hing BBQ in San Francisco, HL Peninsula in Millbrae, and Regent Thai, reflecting its reach across diverse Pan-Asian foodservice operators.