US Foodservice Departs

Hey, this is the first "news" we discovered via Twitter (which linked to the Baltimore Business Journal).

Food distributor U.S. Foodservice, long one of Howard County’s major employers, will close its Columbia office, eliminating 150 local jobs.

U.S. Foodservice said Jan. 12 that it would cut one level of management, consolidating the jobs performed in Columbia into its Rosemont, Ill., headquarters and Phoenix processing center.

The company is one of the country's largest distributors of food products to restaurants and cafeterias. It was part of the Ahold-Giant Food conglomerate until being sold to private equity investors in 2007. The company attracted a bit of notoriety for an accounting scandal a few years back.