James Desiderio Inc. continues to grow with new facility and offices
James Desiderio Inc. continues to grow with new facility and offices
Jim Desiderio is always thinking about the future.
The vice president of sales for James Desiderio Inc., the company founded by his grandfather in Buffalo, NY, and one of the larger wholesalers in western New York, said that the firm has now settled into the first floor of the new three-story, 18,000-square-foot office building it moved into at the end of July.
The second and third floors will remain empty for now, but they will give the family-owned-and-operated company room for future growth, both literally and figuratively.
"It's allowed us to have ample office space for the amount of buying and sales staff we have on board now," Mr. Desiderio told The Produce News. "We're no longer cramped and have room for future expansion."
Mr. Desiderio said that while several of its 65 full-time staffers have been with the company for 20-30 years, the firm has been actively recruiting younger employees, which has been a big part of its philosophy over the past few years.
"We continue to search for and bring youth into the operation," he said. "We're looking 10 to 15 years down the line so as [our] business evolves, we have a solid crew that is trained and ready to go when the baton gets passed down.
"We also have added on staff solely for the purpose of securing, dispatching and tracking trucks and railcars that we are contracting to haul our produce purchases from shipping points," he continued. "Lining up and tracking equipment was something each of the respective buyers had to do on their own in the past. At times this could be a very time-consuming task. Now that we have staff on board to do this, the buying and sales teams can concentrate 100 percent on doing what they do best: buying and selling produce."
The full-line wholesaler also recently added a 20,000-square-foot, temperature-controlled repacking facility to its modern and fully refrigerated 80,000-square-foot warehouse that was built to its specifications in 2001.
"We've expanded our repacking line and are doing a lot of overwrapping now in addition to our citrus, tomato and general repacking," he said, noting that the company purchased two new pieces of overwrapping equipment specifically for the repacking line.
Mr. Desiderio said that while it can "basically overwrap anything," it is currently overwrapping tomatoes, onions, sugar snap and sno peas, apples, oranges, a mixed fruit pack consisting of an apple, orange and pear, and a "stoplight pack" that has a red, yellow and orange bell pepper for its retail clients, which are located primarily in the greater Buffalo area.
The firm also delivers into eastern portions of New York as far as Syracuse and Albany, Pottsville in central Pennsylvania, and portions of Ohio using its fleet of 10 straight job trucks and 15 tractor-trailers.
The new repacking facility is in operation about 14 hours a day, six days a week, and depending on the workload, employs an additional 30-70 part- time employees who are supervised by four members of the management team, Mr. Desiderio said.
While the firm sources from across the United States and Chile, Mr. Desiderio proudly noted that "it is a huge supporter of local homegrown deal here in New York state."
"We handled a full crop this year and even though we had a lot of dry weather we had a decent crop," said Chris Desiderio, Jim's brother and the firm's vice president of procurement. "We had tomatoes, peppers, corn, cabbage, onions, squash including summer, zucchini and hardshell, peaches and apples. We handled a little bit of everything."
Chris Desiderio said that the company works with 50 to 100 local growers, and each year it looks to add new growers. "We try to accommodate as many [growers] as we can."
Even though the firm is in the midst of getting a food-safety certification, which it hopes to have by the end of this month, when visiting Desiderio's facility, it is impossible to overlook just how meticulously clean it is. Jim Desiderio credited this to the two full-time maintenance people who clean the facility from top to bottom six days a week.
"It's always been our goal since we moved into this facility six years ago to keep it looking as good as the day we moved in," Jim Desiderio said. "We strive to keep it in tip-top condition at all times. It's a way of life for us."
The vice president of sales for James Desiderio Inc., the company founded by his grandfather in Buffalo, NY, and one of the larger wholesalers in western New York, said that the firm has now settled into the first floor of the new three-story, 18,000-square-foot office building it moved into at the end of July.
The second and third floors will remain empty for now, but they will give the family-owned-and-operated company room for future growth, both literally and figuratively.
"It's allowed us to have ample office space for the amount of buying and sales staff we have on board now," Mr. Desiderio told The Produce News. "We're no longer cramped and have room for future expansion."
Mr. Desiderio said that while several of its 65 full-time staffers have been with the company for 20-30 years, the firm has been actively recruiting younger employees, which has been a big part of its philosophy over the past few years.
"We continue to search for and bring youth into the operation," he said. "We're looking 10 to 15 years down the line so as [our] business evolves, we have a solid crew that is trained and ready to go when the baton gets passed down.
"We also have added on staff solely for the purpose of securing, dispatching and tracking trucks and railcars that we are contracting to haul our produce purchases from shipping points," he continued. "Lining up and tracking equipment was something each of the respective buyers had to do on their own in the past. At times this could be a very time-consuming task. Now that we have staff on board to do this, the buying and sales teams can concentrate 100 percent on doing what they do best: buying and selling produce."
The full-line wholesaler also recently added a 20,000-square-foot, temperature-controlled repacking facility to its modern and fully refrigerated 80,000-square-foot warehouse that was built to its specifications in 2001.
"We've expanded our repacking line and are doing a lot of overwrapping now in addition to our citrus, tomato and general repacking," he said, noting that the company purchased two new pieces of overwrapping equipment specifically for the repacking line.
Mr. Desiderio said that while it can "basically overwrap anything," it is currently overwrapping tomatoes, onions, sugar snap and sno peas, apples, oranges, a mixed fruit pack consisting of an apple, orange and pear, and a "stoplight pack" that has a red, yellow and orange bell pepper for its retail clients, which are located primarily in the greater Buffalo area.
The firm also delivers into eastern portions of New York as far as Syracuse and Albany, Pottsville in central Pennsylvania, and portions of Ohio using its fleet of 10 straight job trucks and 15 tractor-trailers.
The new repacking facility is in operation about 14 hours a day, six days a week, and depending on the workload, employs an additional 30-70 part- time employees who are supervised by four members of the management team, Mr. Desiderio said.
While the firm sources from across the United States and Chile, Mr. Desiderio proudly noted that "it is a huge supporter of local homegrown deal here in New York state."
"We handled a full crop this year and even though we had a lot of dry weather we had a decent crop," said Chris Desiderio, Jim's brother and the firm's vice president of procurement. "We had tomatoes, peppers, corn, cabbage, onions, squash including summer, zucchini and hardshell, peaches and apples. We handled a little bit of everything."
Chris Desiderio said that the company works with 50 to 100 local growers, and each year it looks to add new growers. "We try to accommodate as many [growers] as we can."
Even though the firm is in the midst of getting a food-safety certification, which it hopes to have by the end of this month, when visiting Desiderio's facility, it is impossible to overlook just how meticulously clean it is. Jim Desiderio credited this to the two full-time maintenance people who clean the facility from top to bottom six days a week.
"It's always been our goal since we moved into this facility six years ago to keep it looking as good as the day we moved in," Jim Desiderio said. "We strive to keep it in tip-top condition at all times. It's a way of life for us."
