For many Christchurch businesses, growth begins with a shopfront, a family willing to work long hours, and a simple promise to customers: turn up, deliver well, and keep going.

For the Balar family, that promise became the foundation of one of New Zealand's largest food distribution businesses.

Service Foods, now a national name in food supply, traces its beginning back to a small Christchurch corner grocer bought by Stan and Vicki Balar after they immigrated to New Zealand. What started as a local fresh produce business grew through customer relationships, long days, and a practical understanding of what hospitality operators needed most: reliable supply, fair service, and people who understood the pressure of running a food business.

Decades later, the family story has become a Christchurch business case study. In June 2026, the Family Business Association hosted a "Meet the Owner" event at Service Foods in Woolston, giving Christchurch's family business community a behind-the-scenes look at how the Balar family built the company from a corner grocer into one of the country's major food distribution operations. The event featured Aneil Balar and Richard Campbell sharing the company's growth story at the Service Foods site on Cumnor Terrace.

The numbers show the scale of that growth. Service Foods is described by the Family Business Association as operating with more than 800 team members, more than 220 trucks, and 15 branches. Aneil Balar's public professional profile also lists him as Managing Director of Service Foods, employing more than 800 people across 16 branches, with annual revenue above $500 million.

But the most interesting part of the Service Foods story is not just the scale. It is that the business began in Christchurch, in the kind of everyday environment that many founders know well. No giant launch, no instant national footprint, no glossy startup myth. Just a family business that kept expanding from one customer base to the next.

That matters in a city like Christchurch, where family businesses remain part of the economic backbone. The Service Foods story speaks to a type of founder journey that is sometimes overlooked: slow-burn growth built through operations, logistics, and trust.

Food distribution is not the most glamorous industry from the outside. It is early starts, tight margins, transport problems, temperature control, supplier pressure, and customers who need orders to arrive when promised. Yet those are exactly the industries where strong operators can build something enduring.

For Christchurch founders, the Balar family's journey offers a different version of success. It is not just about having a disruptive idea. It is about consistency. It is about building systems before the spotlight arrives. It is about surviving the unglamorous parts of growth long enough to become essential.

From a small grocer to a national food distribution network, Service Foods is now part of New Zealand's wider hospitality and food-service infrastructure. Its Christchurch roots remain central to the story, and its rise is a reminder that some of the country's biggest businesses still begin with a counter, a customer, and a family prepared to back itself.