Food experts: I have a question about Chinese restaurants in America.

I live in an area that is saturated with many cheap “American” Chinese restaurants. Now I understand that many of these places in the US are far from “authentic” Chinese cuisine and the food contains large amounts of MSG and all that jazz.

I think that all of these restaurants taste the same. My question is: Does anyone know if really cheap restaurants like this order their ingredients from the same bulk distributors? Does anyone know some companies that sell ingredients in bulk and provide things like cheap, low-grade meat and sauces (among other ingredients, perhaps silverware) and to what restaurants they sell to?

I suspect that many of these Chinese restaurants do, but can not get any confirmation on this. I’m also interested in any other restaurants that may do this, fast food, chain, or otherwise.

(Caveat – please no answers about if you also “think” that restaurants do this and/or you agree/disagree with me. I am only interested in hearing actual answers to my question, preferably with sources like websites, books, etc. Just trying to avoid filler right now. Thank you.)