Hunts Point Wholesalers Shifting Gears With Service, Delivery

Whatever New York City and the region needs, Hunts Point companies can get it.

The anchor of the metropolitan New York City produce industry — the Hunts Point Produce Market, Bronx, NY — is working to advance plans for new facilities in its present location, while also addressing changing technology and stakeholder needs.

The Hunts Point Market sits on 103 acres of land and operates as a cooperative. Approximately 29 merchants are on the market and transport fresh produce from 49 states and 55 foreign countries — and help keep New York and the surrounding region fed.

However, to continue doing so is going to require a market rebuild, an effort that is becoming more acute, given that the contract under which Hunts Point operates is up in about seven years. Yet, optimism, if cautious optimism, seems to prevail among the wholesalers operating on the market.

CONTINUOUS OUTREACH

Hunts Point Produce Market management is in weekly communication with stakeholders, including the city of New York, who are aiding in and helping to finance the project. The massive redevelopment project also requires constant communication and outreach about how the market operates and what is required to keep it serving the city.

As envisioned, the project’s estimated cost will be between $600 and $650 million. New York officials remain committed to $295 million in grants.

The effort to reestablish the market on a modern foundation remains centered on the existing Hunts Point location because relocating the market outside of New York City would be logistically impractical both for market customers and their representatives who do their buying on the market, as well as for the wholesalers who increasingly deliver from the market to clients in the Big Apple or nearby regions. With the market largely serving independent supermarkets and groceries, no other location where a market might operate has the logistical advantage of Hunts Point.

Many wholesalers are frank about the current inadequacies of the market, which they assert was already undersized for its job when it opened almost six decades ago. In the meantime, market maintenance has continued with technological upgrades to the gate and camera systems, and infrastructure work to keep the market going while the renovations await.

Still, market wholesalers are focused on the future and getting a renewed facility up and running.
Gabriela D’Arrigo, vice president at D’Arrigo New York, notes that, when it comes to the market rebuild, the educational process is a consistent effort to make representatives of government and related organizations understand how the market operates in the real world, and not just hypothetically.
She says the response that often comes back on critical issues includes ideas about how to establish a less expensive and more efficient facility, but they are made with little understanding of how a perishables wholesaler functions.

“The crux of the matter is we need to be in the Bronx where we’re located because the bread and butter of our customers are the independents, the mom and pops,” says D’Arrigo.

Zachary Chernalis, chief operating officer of Market Basket, a two-store gourmet food market and catering business in Franklin Lake, NJ, was once the company’s on-the-market buyer, and has long-standing relationships with wholesalers there.

He says Hunts Point helps him maintain the high standards his shoppers expect, while expanding its convenience food operation to the gourmet standards it maintains.

“We do the majority of our buying there,” he says.

Stefanie Katzman, executive vice president, S. Katzman Produce, says a renewed market is critical to New York City and further afield, and needs to be prioritized, given the role Hunts Point plays in feeding millions of people.

“It’s not even just what we do in our market and the jobs in our market, the community we support, but it’s the greater New York area, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. We deliver all the way up to Massachusetts and as far south as Virginia,” Katzman explains.

“Our market touches so many people and supports so many other businesses, that I believe it’s going to get done because it has to get done. I have to believe politicians can see that, too. I think there is no better thing to support than food, our farmers, our small business and consumers.”

BROADER GOOD

The depth of involvement of the Hunts Point businesses with the community around the market is something that isn’t always recognized, but is another way the wholesalers address needs, especially, of course, food, in the New York City area.

An estimated 15 million pounds of surplus produce per year is donated to food rescue and foodservice organizations that feed hungry and food-insecure households throughout the five boroughs of NYC and Westchester County.

A&J Produce, for example, is prominent among the Hunts Point wholesalers that are deeply involved in local Bronx charities. The company works with the Hunts Point Alliance for Children and recently received a Community Hero Honoree award at a gala at the New York Historical Society.

CHANGING TIMES

Change is coming faster than ever at the Hunts Point Market, and managing it requires a clear sense of what is vital.

Michael Armata, buyer and salesman, at E. Armata, says a priority is to “really stay in tune with what’s important now because it changes so rapidly.

“You have to be very diverse. You really need to talk to a lot of different people, a lot of different kinds of customers, to really understand. Everybody has a different reason as to why they want something the way they want it. If you want to be successful, you’ve really got to pay attention to the details.”

Katzman says she gets excited this time of year because “consumers do much outside and are always so much more involved with food.”

“Food brings people together, so I love being in this business.”

She notes that grocery stores and foodservice are changing and consumers are paying more attention to what they eat, with more specialized diets.

“One of the greatest things about our business is that everything we produce is fresh and healthy,” she says, “Any way you want to prepare it is going to end up tasting good and being good for you.”

That said, constant challenges to the Hunts Point wholesalers remain, including labor.

“We are out there battling constraints on labor, and we don’t have all the options so many other businesses have,” Katzman says.

To help their small grocer customers confront labor challenges, Katzman has been expanding deliveries, sending a merchandiser to the store, or talking with retail produce buyers about what products might be coming through the supply chain that their customers might embrace.

Peter Faraci, buyer/sales manager at Coosemans New York, says labor is a challenge on the market, not in terms of finding it, but of holding onto it, both in the case of warehouse workers and truck drivers.

“There’s plenty of people who want to work, but once they do the work, not a lot of people stay,” he says. “It’s a highly intensive labor job.”

More drivers are needed, as delivery has become a growing part of doing business in Hunts Point, and even can become an early point of discussion with potential new customers.

“We have noticed a significant increase in delivery demands at Hunts Point Market,” says Nick Pacia, Trucco chief executive. “Our primary focus remains on delivering exceptional service and maintaining high quality.”

At Trucco, rolling with the times has been a continual process, both on the market and off. The company has expanded its New Jersey facility and added items like Italian roasted hazelnuts to its dynamic product mix.

“While we continue to offer our traditional range of dried fruits, nuts, kiwifruit, greenhouse and other produce, this year, we are expanding our focus to include domestic cherries to complement our import program,” says Pacia.

TXT ME L8TR

At the same time, Trucco has been dealing with the changing terms of engagement with its customers. “We have stepped up our communications through calls, texts, and emails, effectively managing relationships with brokers, truck consolidators and direct buyers,” says Pacia.

Although management at many wholesalers at first looked askance at younger workers expressing preference for texting, it has become a key means of doing business. Although speaking with customers and understanding just what they need remains critical, Armata says texting has some operational advantages in wholesale operations.

“You get a message over very quickly and effectively, without having the full chitchat conversation,” he explains. “When it’s a text message, it’s easy for them to reply. Basically, it’s just another line of communication.”

Not that other kinds of communication have become passé.

“There are people who I email, text, phone call and see in person,” Armata says. “I’m doing all these things with them, and I still text the person. It’s a really good way to track them.”

NEXT STEPS

In addition to emails and texting, other technology is moving Hunts Point operations forward. Matthew Park, CJ Brothers chief executive, says technology “brings a lot more visibility and transparency certainly. Every sale, everything that happens to our inventory, is all reported.”

The wholesaler still does manual, physical inventory every day, “but a lot less of the numbers are wrong,” says Park.

“What will really be nice is when everybody else starts to embrace some of this technology, so our technology can talk to their technology,” he adds. “We’re kind of like an island right now, where we’re very high tech and everything is tracked internally, but we’re still manually entering passings from our shippers. We’re still manually doing accounts receivable, accounts payable. Once our customers, once our shippers have some sort of tech like this, where it can speak to our systems, that’s when things will really start moving and grooving.”

TAP INTO SOCIAL MEDIA

For Hunts Point wholesalers, communications now proceed through a variety of channels. Judy Fierman, Fierman Produce Exchange executive vice president, focuses much of her attention on outreach to consumers, as well as to current and potential customers, using another means of engagement.

“We’re trying to improve the company as a whole, building more sales and customers for the future, so we’re directing people to our social media accounts.”

Fierman says social media can play a role in relationship-building with long-standing and new customers. The same may be said about consumers who want to see what might be new and emerging. Fierman uses Instagram and LinkedIn to colorfully illustrate the products it offers.

SERVICE IS KEY

Cary Rubin, Rubin Bros. Produce Corp. vice president, says that, as a wholesaler operation, the market’s job is to keep product flowing, with effective technology an important means to an end and the maintenance of high standards integral to business practices. Rubin Bros. sets up orders for customers who still come into the market, as well as doing more delivery.

“From a cost perspective, time is money,” he says. “We definitely have a lot of customers that have transitioned to delivery versus pick-up. Why wouldn’t they want it delivered versus having to send a truck here, pay the tolls, pay the gas, pay the insurance? There’s a whole lot of expense that goes into running a truck. So we’ve been providing that service when asked, as long as it’s profitable for us as well.”

In the diverse New York market, Rubin Brothers works with customers beyond its core product offering when the need arises.

“We do go out of our way to source whatever our customers need, even if it’s not necessarily part of our daily product inventory.”

— Cary Rubin, Rubin Bros. Produce Corp.

“We get a lot of requests for different items that maybe we don’t sell and, hopefully, we can source them,” says Rubin. “We do go out of our way to source whatever our customers need, even if it’s not necessarily part of our daily product inventory.

“It’s a lot easier for us to put something on a truck that’s already rolling,” he adds. “These customers don’t buy enough product to do that on their own, so they’re kind of coattailing our volume buying.”

At A&J Produce, John Thomas Bonomolo, office director, says the changing basis of relationships has made some of the traditional attributes of the market, particularly buyers walking the loading as the focal point of operations, less critical.

“They want to come here less and less,” he says. “They know they’re getting a good product, so they don’t really have to come and inspect it. Call up, deliver, it’s there when you get to the store or wherever your place of business is.”

Bonomolo says A&J delivers in the tri-state area, including Connecticut, often putting four or five stops on a truck.

Service has always been a focal point at Coosemans New York, says Faraci. “We’re really trying to focus on deliveries, servicing our customers and our customers’ needs. It’s becoming more of a customer service industry than ever. If you don’t service your own customers, they’ll go somewhere else.”

“It’s [wholesaling] becoming more of a customer service industry than ever. If you don’t service your own customers, they’ll go somewhere else.”

— Peter Faraci, Coosemans New York

At the same time, the company, as a wholesaler that primarily supplies the foodservice industry, is keeping up with a tradition of bringing unknown or at least lesser-known produce to a New York metropolitan area that is not only diverse, but also delights in new eating experiences.

“You have to change with the times,” Faraci says. “In 2024, we’re experimenting with new things, bringing in new fruits and vegetables and honing in on specialties. Coosemans has been developing its cherimoya and loquat operations, for example.

“A lot of the innovative chefs are really going the extra mile to make their plates stand out,” he adds. “That’s why our place is so different because this is somewhere to do it. We just started sourcing in Colombian sugar mangos, for instance. That’s a very unique mango with a very unique flavor.”

NEW BLOOD

One thing that is more evident at Hunts Point is a general change in the largely family-run enterprises.
Evan Kazan, vice president at Target Interstate Systems, Bronx, NY, notes that leadership and business have been changing, which can be positive developments when well managed.

“After being in business for 43 years, there has been a shift in recent years of the next generation coming into the business,” says Kazan. “It’s exciting to see the new generation joining the business and the future is looking bright.”

That shift has brought other business evolutions, he adds. “We used to be completely relationship-focused, which is still very important. With the new generation, we have seen a shift to more bidding on freight due to greater computer access to market information and pricing. This is the case both with carriers and customers.”

D’Arrigo says, even as wholesalers upgrade systems and apply technology, the critical factor in keeping the business healthy is maintaining established relationships consistent with the expectations of D’Arrigo’s grower/shippers partners and retail customers.

“Our whole mindset from the ground up is to make sure, our morals and our values as a company stay consistent because that brought us to 75 years, almost 76 years functioning as a company,” she says. “Those core values have been able to keep us moving forward.”

“A huge part of that is the consistency,” she adds. “If you can be consistent with your customer and your supplier as best you can, you’re going to keep moving forward.”

The knowledge that the market itself is going through a metamorphosis weighs on every investment decision made today, too.

“You have to stay optimistically cautious and make the changes that you need to make in a timely fashion,” she says. “We’re still trying to grow our customer reach, bringing on new customers, expanding with current customers, see what else can we do to help your business. You’re a trusted partner, we’re a trusted partner. Let’s work together to keep everything going and try to make progress while doing it and not remain stagnant.”