The Founder

In 1977, Alain Cruanes, the son of a French Algerian Olive oil exporter, first began trading olive oil in Morocco for an Italian clientele. It was when the Italians began dominating the olive oil market that Alain made a decision to move to New York in 1983. Over time, Alain began to import more than just olive oil. He also expanded to capers, anchovies and pasta, offering a line of Mediterranean products to his customers. That is how Overseas Food Trading was created! In 2001, Alain met David Bensadoun and Stephane Picard who joined Overseas Food Trading and became partners in 2003. 

The Story of Our Olive Oil

Since joining the team in 2001, David Bensadoun has handled all of the Overseas olive oil trading. He began by opening new sourcing origins and developed partnerships in South America, Spain, Portugal and the Middle East. The expansion of trading gave David the opportunity to start bottling imported olive oil in the US. In 2008, Overseas invested and opened Sunset Olive Oil, a bottling facility in Los Angeles dedicated to better serve its retailers. Another investment in 2010 by David and his family led to the purchase of the famous Pompeian brand and its bottling factory in Baltimore. In 2016, a joint venture was created between Pompeian, Sunset, Overseas Food Trading and DCOOP—the largest Spanish olive oil co-op. Since then, more investments have been made in two major olive tree farms and mills in California. Today our olive oil business keeps on growing toward a very bright future!

The Story of Our Sweets and Snacks

While maintaining the existing Italian specialty food imports, Stephane Picard started to develop relationships with new high-end French suppliers, setting Overseas on a successful new undertaking. In 2002, a French chocolate truffle manufacturer approached Overseas to create a joint venture, Chocmod USA was born. The sales of Chocmod Truffles quickly skyrocketed, so Stephane continued to source more specialty French sweets, including cookies, candies and other chocolates. New partnerships with major French suppliers such as Andros and Saint Michel were formed. Recognizing a new opportunity in 2007, Overseas grew its operations to the frozen specialty food to tackle Food Service customers.

Overseas is a major force sourcing and selling high-end sweets in the US.