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48 / MARCH 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS
different needs.
“We try to support all of our customers that
support us — retail chains, independents and foodservice,” says Rocky Produce’s Russo. “Food safety is highly important to us for our food- service and retail customers alike; they look for good quality and good delivery timing.”
Nickey Gregory took service to its foodser- vice customers to the point of developing an in-house, fresh-cut program.
“We do not sell much to retailers; we sell mainly to the larger foodservice companies and other wholesalers across the South- east,” says Scott. “We have started our own processing/fresh-cut division, Family Fresh Foods, a division of the Nickey Gregory Company. Providing special fresh-cut and processed items for our customers has become another service that we are now providing.”
YOU CAN SEE IT, SMELL IT AND TASTE IT
Peter Carcione’s father, Joe Carcione, was famous throughout Northern California and beyond through decades of media shorts as the “Green Grocer.” His televison spots on seasonal produce were delivered with such enthusiasm and warmth that you could almost smell and taste the produce over the radio.
“You have to sell the advantage of being
able to see the produce,” says Peter Carcione, president of Carcione’s Fresh Produce, South San Francisco. “My dad was on the market. He could see the produce, cut it open and smell it and taste it and tell you what was good that week. There are a lot of small businesses popping up, and it’s our job to let them know the produce terminal is the place they can see the produce, smell it and taste it.”
Although some major wholesalers have their own efficiency-first facilities on the outskirts of urban areas, much like the corporate super- market distribution centers, others choose to harken back to the days when the produce market was a meeting place of city consumers and nearby farmers and their representatives.
“There are 26 businesses in the wholesale market, and it is still the only place you can look at the produce, smell it and taste it,” says Carcione. “There are guys with one, two or three stores or restaurant suppliers coming down here. The wholesale produce market is still OK.”
From San Francisco to Detroit, there are still retailers who want to see and smell the produce before they buy.
“The independents are here shopping in person every day looking to see what’s coming in,” says Russo, from Rocky Produce.
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n SURVIVAL OF THE INDIES
Many wholesalers focus on service to the independents and small chains to avoid obsolescence in a produce world where much of their traditional role is played by supermarket distribution centers.
“We do a little bit with the large supermarkets, but a large majority of our business is independents and food- service,” says Francisco Clouthier, owner of Maui Fresh International, Los Angeles. “We used to do more with the large chains, but that changed when they went to direct buying.”
Maui Fresh wholesales a full line of sweet and chile peppers, limes, melons, beans, eggplants, Hawaiian papaya, pineapples, pomegranates and other produce from the business Clouthier started at the Los Angeles wholesale market in 2004.
“For some of the independents we deliver direct to the store, some to the warehouse,” says Clouthier. “They are all different.”
The breadth of service wholesalers provide to small stores often makes them seem similar to partners in the business.
“Many wholesalers around the country are almost indistinguishable from the people who own the small stores,” says Matthew D’Arrigo, chief executive of D’Arrigo Bros. New York, which operates on the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx. “We don’t do planograms for them, but they rely on us for a lot. We give them storage, and up-to-the-second delivery. I don’t know if we ever sold that much to the big, big guys. We do a lot of business with small stores or small chains, and maybe a third is going to foodservice.”
Some of the independents rely on wholesalers to supply them with high- er-end specialty produce.
“There has been a resurgence of small-scale, higher-end retail stores, as well as independent restaurants and restaurant groups, especially in urban