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ASCENDANT INDEPENDENT
Joe Randazzo’s
Fruit And Vegetable Market
Produce is essential for longtime grocer feeding Detroit-area families. BY DOUG OHLEMEIER
For generations, Detroit-area residents have been able to fill their shopping carts with a large variety of fresh produce from Joe Randazzo’s Fruit and Vegetable
Market, Inc., a chain of stores that has become a community staple.
The flagship of four stores, which date their origin to the early 1950s, is on East Outer Drive, on the city’s northeast side, directly north of Detroit’s downtown. The stores radiate a family-oriented vibe, a type of personality in which shoppers are likely to see a family member and owner walking around the produce aisles.
“Produce is everything for our operation,” says Sarah Urbani, director of marketing and advertising.“It’s our bread and butter.We have
24 / MAY 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS
an open-market feel when you walk in our store. Everything is freshly displayed and restocked throughout the day. Our family has been providing families with the freshest produce at the lowest cost. Families throughout metro Detroit have been relying on Joe Randazzo’s for generations.”
In 1953, Joe Randazzo, born Giuseppe Randazzo in Terrisini, Sicily, immigrated to the United States at 26 as a stowaway on a freighter. Locked in a small, dark room next to the engines, a friend brought him food. One time, when the friend was ill, Randazzo went without food or water for nearly five days. Randazzo left the ship when it arrived in New Orleans for repairs and arranged to live with an uncle on Lake St. Clair in Grosse Pointe,
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF RANDAZZO’S FRUIT AND VEGETABLE MARKET
MI, northeast of Detroit.
After hard work at a Ford assembly line,
Randazzo peddled fruit with the money saved and later opened his first store in 1956.
Today, the Randazzo family operates stores on Detroit’s northeast, north and west sides, in Dearborn Heights, MI, Roseville, MI, and Westland, MI, along with a nursery in Macomb Township.
As fresh produce occupies 98 percent of the stores, it commands 95 to 97 percent of sales. The Outer Drive store includes 10,000 square feet of retail space, with a 50,000-square-foot cooler, which supplies product to other stores.
Primary produce items include apples — of which a dozen different varieties are merchandised — and other vegetables.The store