| $50K Annual savings found | Same day Overcharge identified | That week Vendor switched |
🔗 Maria and Celeste Group are active members of the Pancho network. The network is open — and growing. Operators in NY, Chicago, and Boston are joining now.
A relationship business, until the math stopped working.
Maria runs Celeste Group — three locations across Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston. She’d been building this for years. She knew her business inside out. She also knew her suppliers personally. Real relationships, not transactional ones.
When inflation started showing up in her food costs in 2025, she asked her reps about it. They sympathized. Blamed the market. The costs kept climbing. The answers stayed vague.
“I thought having a great relationship with my supplier meant they were fighting for my prices. I never stopped to check if that was actually true.”
— Maria Rondeau, Celeste GroupIt’s a story every independent operator knows by feel if not by name. You’ve built trust. You know your rep’s kids’ names. You assume that trust travels both ways. Most of the time, it doesn’t.
Pollock at $12.50. The market said $7.50.
In early 2026, Maria uploaded her invoices to Pancho. The first insight came back on pollock — a staple that moved real volume. She had never questioned the price because her rep had never given her a reason to.
“It wasn’t about trust. It was about information. He had it. I didn’t. And nobody was going to hand it to me voluntarily.”
— Maria RondeauThe chains aren’t winning on charm.
Every operator we’ve spoken to has a version of Maria’s story — a relationship they trusted, a price they never questioned, a number they would have acted on if they’d only known it existed.
The hard part isn’t fixing the price once you know. The hard part is finding out. What Maria had was information. The same picture chain buyers have had for decades. Pancho exists to give independent operators that same picture.
The chains aren’t winning on charm. They’re winning on data. Now you can too.
Maria joined. So did these operators.
Pancho is a network of operators sharing invoice data so everyone gets the benchmark that chains have always had. The more operators that join, the sharper the intelligence gets — for everyone in it.
See what your invoices are hiding.
We’re opening founding spots in New York, Chicago, and Boston. Book 30 minutes with Kike — walk away knowing exactly where you stand on pricing.
Start Saving Now — Schedule a 30 Min Call Or explore the network first at hipancho.comThe purchasing network for independent restaurants.
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Issue #001 · June 2026 · Purchasing intelligence for independent restaurants
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