Movefoods Supply

Most of what a restaurant serves in Los Cabos arrives on a truck, and the difference between a good kitchen and a frustrated one is often nothing to do with the chef. It is whether the box that turned up contains what was ordered, cut the way it was ordered, on the morning it was promised.

Movefoods is a protein supplier built around that problem. Their slogan — for our dearest chefs — is the whole positioning, and it is aimed squarely at the people who have to open service at seven whether the delivery was right or not.

What they actually do

They carry beef, chicken, pork and seafood, and the part worth understanding is what happens between the cold room and your door. They run their own process rooms, which means the cut, the portion weight, the presentation and the packaging are variables you get to set rather than a catalogue you have to pick from. Any presentation, any gramaje, any volume, in their words.

For a kitchen that is the difference between buying a product and specifying one. Portion control stops being something your line cooks do at a loss and starts being something that arrives already done.

On the beef side they carry Creekstone Farms, USDA Prime and Choice, and Wagyu, and the supply chain is TIF certified — the federal inspection standard, which is the thing to ask any protein supplier about before anything else.

Why it matters that they are here

They keep an office in San José del Cabo alongside the one in Mexico City. That is a meaningful distinction in a town where a lot of “suppliers” are a sales route driven down the peninsula, and where the question that decides everything is who answers in August when something goes wrong with a delivery.

Claudia Ramírez runs Cabo. José Ángel Echávarri runs Mexico City.

Who they already supply

They serve restaurants, hotels, industrial canteens, yacht operators and villas. In Los Cabos they name El Ganzo, Veleros, Wild Cabo, Papillon Yachts, Ahorcado, Osteria, Clase Azul, Grupo Rosa Negra and Grupo Hunan among their clients; in Mexico City, Grupo Sushi Roll, Sanborns, Hooters, Alsea and Rosa Negra again.

That list is worth reading for what it implies rather than for the names. Yacht operators need exact portions in small volumes at short notice. Industrial canteens need the opposite. A supplier that holds both kinds of account is one that has built for flexibility rather than for a single order size — which is the useful thing to know if your kitchen is somewhere in between.

What to ask when you call

Ask for the cut specification you actually want rather than the one on the list, since that is the point of them. Ask what the delivery day is for your zone, and what the minimum is to get it. And if you are running a boat or a villa, say so first — the lead time and the packaging are different from a restaurant’s, and they will tell you which one you are getting.