Quaker City Produce closing doors by week’s end
Quaker City Produce closing doors by week’s end
Seventeen days after the death of company patriarch Jimmy Storey, his family business, Quaker City Produce, will close its doors on the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market.
Storey died Oct. 13 after several years of health issues. His son, Peter Storey, told The Produce News Oct. 28 that the firm would be closing its doors Oct. 30.
Peter Storey and his stepmother, Megan Storey, have been running the business through the years of Jimmy Storey’s illness.
“Meg and I have really been trying to get everything worked out" but see no options but to close the firm, he said.
The pair have met with “advisers, counselors and attorneys” to discuss the next step for the firm. As of Oct. 28, “We don’t know what we’re going to do” beyond simply closing the doors,” he said. “This is a very emotional time for us.” Quaker City “is a company that my father built.”
Asked about a rumor that the firm owed $4 million, Peter Storey replied, “That is not true.” But he said the debt “was a little too much to get out of.” Continuing to operate the company “appears to be unworkable.” Closing the firm “is not what we want to do.”
Quaker City Produce was founded in Philadelphia in the 1940s by brothers Dan and Jim Story, the latter being Jimmy Storey’s father. Quaker City was among the original companies to move into the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market when it opened in 1959 on the Food Distribution Center.
For 20 years Storey was president of the Regional Produce Cooperative Corp., which managed Philadelphia’s old produce market. He led the decade-long effort to build the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, which opened June 5, 2011.
