This 94-year-old low-profile billionaire has just sold his food empire for $29.0 billion.

Nathan Korsch started his entrepreneurial journey in South Africa, beginning in 1976 with a warehouse in Brooklyn, building the Restaurant Depot.

Behind this billion-dollar deal involving Jetro Restaurant Depot, is its 94-year-old founder—who transformed a warehouse in Brooklyn into an American food empire, accumulating billions of dollars in wealth.

Nathan “Nati” Korsch founded the restaurant supply warehouse (Restaurant Depot) in 1976 under the name Jetro Cash & Carry, and developed the company into a leading brand dominating the foodservice supply market. The restaurant supply warehouses operate 166 stores across 35 states in the U.S., with last year’s revenue of approximately $16 billion.

“We can say we have no competitors at all,” Korsch once stated during a class at London Business School in 2011. He still holds the majority stake in this warehouse retail business.

The company pioneered the cash-and-carry model, allowing small restaurant owners and other individual merchants to purchase food supplies from its warehouses at any time. The company states that by eliminating delivery and distribution costs, it can offer more cost-effective prices.

This deal, in which food distribution giant Sysco acquired the company for about $29.1 billion (including debt), marks a fitting conclusion to the low-profile Korsch’s legendary career in the food industry.

According to media reports, Korsch was born in South Africa in 1932 to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who ran a malt business. He initially engaged in the grain milling industry before moving into distribution.

In 1970, he acquired Moshal Gevisser, a South African distributor attempting the cash-and-carry model, officially entering the wholesale distribution industry. At that time, apartheid policies prohibited white-owned businesses from operating directly in black townships, so Korsch supplied goods to black shop owners through this company.

By the mid-1970s, Korsch began looking overseas. “I was very pessimistic about South Africa’s future at the time,” he later said about his decision to seek business opportunities in the U.S.

During a visit to New York, he studied the procurement methods of small retailers and discovered a business opportunity. “I went to learn how these small stores in New York were sourcing their goods. I found the existing model very primitive and inefficient,” he recalled in his 2011 speech.

In 1976, Korsch established Jetro Cash & Carry in Brooklyn, targeting individual shop owners seeking low prices and immediate pickup. This model was the mature cash-and-carry system he had refined in South Africa.

“We spent many years realizing that it wasn’t us who needed to learn how to run a business, but our customers needed to change in order to benefit from our services,” he said during his 2011 speech about the early days of his entrepreneurship.

Restaurant supply warehouses operate 166 stores across 35 states in the U.S.

He steadily expanded the business, and in 1994 acquired a foodservice warehouse focused on serving individual restaurants. Later, these two brands were integrated under Jetro Holdings, creating a nationwide network of warehouse stores serving small foodservice businesses.

The company has grown into one of the largest cash-and-carry wholesale distributors in the U.S., supplying independent restaurants, foodservice providers, and food retailers. Currently, the company is led by President Richard Keeshner, with Executive Chairman and long-time CEO Stanley Freshman assisting in management. Sources say Korsch’s three children are not involved in daily operations.

Most of Korsch’s wealth comes from Jetro Holdings and related real estate investments. Despite ongoing business expansion, he has maintained a relatively low public profile.

Korsch is one of Africa’s most well-known billionaires, but has rarely appeared publicly in recent decades. During this time, he quietly funded thousands of small and micro enterprises in his residence, Swaziland (now Eswatini).

In addition to Jetro Holdings, Korsch’s investment portfolio includes London’s 42nd skyscraper and Australian real estate firm Scripton Properties Group. Forbes estimates his net worth at $7.3 billion.