ABOUT FARE FOODS
What Began as Produce Company in 1958, is now the Leader in the Mobile Concession Supply Industry.
Warehouses located in Illinois and Florida allow Fare Foods to serve customers in 44 states!
Porter Foods was started in 1958 by Raymond and Carolyn Porter. Beginning out of two refrigerated truck bodies in the backyard of Ray and Carolyn’s home, they serviced the Du Quoin, IL area. Food deliveries were made to hospitals, schools, churches, and restaurants and eventually, service was expanded to over a 70 mile radius.
One group of customers was the concessionaires at the Du Quoin State Fair, which has been in Du Quoin since 1923. When the fair came to town, Ray and his son Ron would walk the midway and take orders. Ron was in grade school when he met these concessionaires and took their orders while “Dad” chatted up the operators.
As Ron grew older, he became an integral part of the family business. When Raymond retired in 1989, Ron took the helm and Porter Foods continued to serve the Southern Illinois area. In 1993, Frank King of King Food Service, a native of nearby Herrin, IL, called Ron asking him to bring some supplies to his next fair in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Having never shipped foods out of the area before, Ron was hesitant but once he did the math, traveling south didn’t seem too impossible.
Once he showed up at the fairgrounds to deliver stock, four white pickup trucks with Texas plates came up to him and asked Ron who he was and if he was going to be back tomorrow so they could buy some stock. Those trucks belonged to the McKinney family from Hughes Springs, Texas, who remains loyal customers still today.
On this trip to Tulsa, Ron realized he had found a niche business opportunity that no one else had filled. Concessionaires needed a reliable source for their product, and someone that had enough warehouse space to store the concession foods and supplies. Ron was going to deliver to concessionaires ON SITE and supply them with any food, equipment, or disposable goods they needed. Not having to load their stock trucks and carry product around from fair to fair was a huge selling point to concessionaires, and Ron was willing to be there and service their needs.
Ron continued to deliver to fairs and festivals under a new corporation name: Fare Foods. He started developing customers by attending trade shows, conventions, and traveling to various fairs; just hoping to recruit some people to use his service.
And use it, they have!
It’s estimated that over half of a fair’s “joints” have used our incredible service and our fleet of nearly 25 semis, vans, box trucks, and cargo vans. We have traveled from Miami to Calgary to Albuquerque to Loudon, New Hampshire.
Fare Foods has grown into an eight-figure business with over 40 full and part-time employees. These employees have traveled across North America to serve concessionaires and carnivals wherever they move.