Baldor BITE Connected Growers, Makers, Buyers and Chefs in NYC

Biannual Distributor Event Featured New Products and Classics

New York — Move over tender baby greens and spring mix. Consumers are craving crunch in their salads like never before and one company, Olivia’s Organics, a brand of State Garden in Chelsea, MA, is responding with new products: Green Leaf Crunch and Red & Green Leaf Crunch.

Olivia’s Organics showcased these greenhouse-grown lettuces at Baldor BITE 2026, the biannual vendor event produced by East Coast distributor Baldor Specialty Foods. The one-day showcase was held on April 21 in New York City and featured more than 270 exhibitors from Bronx, NY-based Baldor’s catalog of 1,000 growers and specialty food producers.

Exhibitors included well-known names like Driscoll’s, Watsonville, CA, B&W, Fellsmere, FL, Tanimura & Antle, Salinas, CA and new Baldor vendors. Those included Girl & Dug Farm, San Marcos, CA, a family-owned grower of greens, herbs and unique items like rose-colored celery and Baby Yoda tomatoes and EarthFresh Foods, a Canadian specialty potato grower based in Burlington, Ontario.  

Brian Dunn, director of foodservice sales for Olivia’s Organics, says the company launched its new lettuces this spring following extensive consumer research that revealed diners want crunch in their salads. In just four weeks, the 4 oz. containers are “already flying” off the shelves, he says. Next in the mix may be baby romaine, he adds.

Red Kiwi, Oval Squash

Other products presented at Baldor BITE included newcomer Zucchiolo, an oval-shaped vegetable developed in Spain billed as “neither a cucumber nor a courgette” from Malena Produce, Nogales, AZ. Zucchiolo was the star of a live ratatouille demo at the show made with extra virgin Spanish olive oil from importer Casa Pons USA, Parsippany, NJ.

A new take on kiwifruit stood out in the jam-packed aisles, Zespri RubyRed Kiwifruit from New Zealand. It boasts a red-hued flesh and a sweet, berry-like flavor. It has smooth skin versus conventional kiwi’s fuzzy exterior. The delicate fruit needs to be treated like berries and has a limited season. “It’s in high demand,” says Zespri representative Julie Barber. She says that customers include Acme Markets, ShopRite, Giant Food Stores, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Costco.

Happy Vendor

Brian Gannon, VP of sales for Pero Family Farms based in Delray Beach, FL, was handing out 8-oz. bags of mini sweet peppers in front of the company’s booth at the show. Baldor distributes several Pero products, including bagged broccoli and cauliflower florets and two-packs of organic cucumbers that can be easily scanned at checkout.

“Baldor is a very creative organization, and we like to be affiliated with them,” says Gannon.

Pero’s booth also displayed value-added broccoli and cauliflower florets with no visible crumbs in the bags. “We have a lot more meat in the bag,” says Gannon.

Party Time

Baldor put on quite a show at the waterfront event venue Basketball City along New York’s East River, complete with a boardwalk theme, carnival games, six open bars and a charity hotdog eating contest featuring Baldor-distributed Golden Meat Co.

The event drew an estimated 3,000 chefs, restaurateurs, retailers and buyers from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. At midday the aisles were so packed with attendees that it was like being at Grand Central Station at rush hour.

Flavor on the Menu

Flavor was the focus of a panel featuring Garland Reiter, Jr., chief commercial officer of Driscoll’s, Watsonville, CA, and Aaron Choi, founder, Girl & Dug Farm, the first an industry stalwart and the second a company catering to chefs and adventurous cooks. The panel was moderated by Jacob Krempel, Baldor’s senior vice president procurement and merchandising.

Other panelists included leaders Baldor portfolio companies BKE Kombucha, DemKota Ranch Beef and Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings.

At Driscoll’s, flavor is central to the 120-year-old company’s mission, says Reiter, who leads commercial strategy across the Americas. “At the end of the day, if we’re going to grow this category of consumption, flavor has to be number one and it is a purchase driver for berries.”

He told the audience that Driscoll’s represents 600 smaller independent growers in the Americas who farm in 57 regions. They grow 221 different varieties that are harvested by 100,000 people. Those efforts bring 57 billion berries to market every year. Driscoll’s itself doesn’t grow anything, Reiter says.

“To make that orchestra work and to deliver that product is a lot of what our team focuses on,” says Reiter. “We have a quality system where we incentivize growers to harvest more flavorful fruit.”  

Driscoll’s operates a genetics lab for research and focuses on supply chain efficiencies, branding and marketing. “I will be the first one to admit we are not perfect all the time, but we deal with one of the most perishable products on this planet,” says Reiter. “We never wanted to be the biggest. We wanted to be the best. At the center of all that is the flavor.”

Weeping Produce

Girl & Dug, named for founder Choi’s daughter and dog, grew out of a small family cucumber farm and now grows more than 150 unique produce varieties. It’s one of Baldor’s fastest-growing portfolio companies, Baldor’s Krempel says.

“Finding new varietals, new smells, new aromas, it’s just great to be able to have a platform where I have a world of chefs who know what to do exactly with those things,” says Choi. “What we want to grow has to do with what would a chef do with this. It’s always, what is the end of this? How are they going to transform this tomato or this flower or this citrus into something that masses can enjoy?”

Choi says education about flavor is key both internally and for customers. An aromatic herb may lose its scent in colder temperature or just the opposite, Choi says, and that’s crucial information to understand and share.

One Girl & Dug offering, ice plants, an edible succulent coated with water-filled cells that look like crystals, won raves from fellow panelist Saleena Subaiya, founder of BKE Kombucha, a brewery based in Brooklyn, NY. “Everyone needs to try this. This thing looks like it came out of Avatar, and it tastes even better.”