Food and hospitality's growth problem isn't product. It's access.
The gap between great products in food and hospitality and the operators who need them is slow, accidental, and structurally ignored. Castle Peak Ventures sits between both sides of the market, represents products and technology to institutional buyers, and earns when the connection works.
Not a consulting firm. Not a broker. Castle Peak owns the connection.
Two sides of the same market
The best suppliers can't always reach the operators who need them. The best operators can't always find the innovation that would change their business. Castle Peak holds both sides.
You built something the market needs. You can't reach the buyers who should have it.
Your product works. Your early customers love it. But the RFP goes out and you're not on it. The operator who should be buying from you doesn't know you exist. The wall isn't your product. It's the distance between what you've built and the institutional buyers who control access.
Castle Peak becomes your commercial arm. I represent your product to operators, build the channel strategy, make the introductions, and stay through deployment. I don't hand off a strategy and hope. I build your activation motion around existing institutional infrastructure so the connection sticks and scales.
You're competing on the same playbook as everyone else. The differentiation is out there. You can't find it.
You manage a portfolio of accounts across foodservice, healthcare, education, or managed services. The suppliers who could elevate your programming are out there. The technology that could change your kitchen economics is out there. But finding it, vetting it, and integrating it takes bandwidth you don't have.
Castle Peak brings vetted innovation directly to you. Products and technology I've already evaluated, from companies I already represent. And I stay through integration. I don't hand you a supplier and disappear. I build the activation with them so it works inside your operation from day one.
Castle Peak is the connective tissue between innovation and institutional scale.
Every relationship on one side of the market strengthens the other. A cooking technology partner creates demand for a protein supplier. An AI platform that automates procurement strengthens the value proposition for an operator. An institutional distribution network scales what a single supplier could never reach alone.
The ecosystem compounds. That's the architecture. Castle Peak doesn't just connect products to market. It builds them.
How it works
Advisory is the engine. Portfolio is the architecture. Ventures is the destination. Three gears of the same machine, all pointed at the same place: building something real.
Advisory
Retainer-based commercial strategy and execution. Channel mapping, distribution strategy, operator introductions. The work that funds the ecosystem and deepens both sides of the market simultaneously.
Engagements run 90 days to ongoing. I embed in the problem, stay close to execution, and bring the institutional context that makes a strategy actually land. The relationships built here become the activation infrastructure for everything else Castle Peak does.
Portfolio
I represent your product to market. Equity and commission structures for companies that need a commercial partner, not a consultant. I build the GTM motion, open the doors, and walk through them on your behalf.
And I stay through deployment. I build your activation around existing institutional platforms and distribution infrastructure so the connection scales without requiring anyone to change how they operate.
Ventures
The advisory work builds relationships on both sides of the market. The portfolio assembles the ecosystem. Ventures is where Castle Peak proves the thesis from the inside: owned concepts, developed from the ground up, using the products, technology, culinary programming, and supply chain the ecosystem has built. I don't just advise other people on how to grow. I build brands and take them to market on the same infrastructure the portfolio companies use. That's the proof that the architecture works.
I start by listening. Most engagements begin with a conversation where you tell me what you're building, where you're stuck, and what you've already tried. I'll be honest about whether I can help, where the real leverage is, and whether the fit is right. If it isn't, I'll say so.
No two engagements look the same. The shape of the work follows the problem, not a deck. What stays constant is the posture: accountable to the outcome, not the billable hour.
Who I am
I'm Johnny Auer. I spent 25 years in institutional and commercial foodservice, most recently leading food transformation for Sodexo's North American portfolio. I evaluated kitchen automation, built off-premise food programs, authored acquisition theses, restructured product portfolios, and learned how large organizations actually make decisions about what to buy, from whom, and why.
I built Castle Peak to own the connection nobody else would. From the inside, I kept seeing the same thing: the right suppliers existed, the operators had the problems, and the connection was slow, mostly accidental, and nobody was accountable for making it work.
Built and scaled an off-premise food program from concept, connecting suppliers to operators inside a $10B portfolio
Authored acquisition theses across food delivery and technology-enabled convenience services, including one that informed a $100M+ transaction
Evaluated 15+ kitchen technology platforms from both sides: what the technology could do and whether operators would actually buy it
Restructured a commercial portfolio across non-commercial, managed services, GPO, and emerging technology by mapping how each channel actually buys
Thinking
I write about the patterns I see across the food and hospitality industry. Distribution, growth architecture, what's working, and what isn't. See all →
Get in touch
If something here resonates with where you are, I'd like to hear about it. Whether you're a supplier trying to reach institutional buyers, an operator looking for differentiation, or an investor pressure-testing a growth thesis.
No pitch. No intake form. Just a conversation.