Prime Time expands asparagus production and team
Coachella, CA-based Prime Time International continues to build its asparagus program as it adds volume in several districts and also added an asparagus specialist based in Florida.
“Prime Time continues to expand our year-round asparagus program loading from our shipping locations in California, Texas and Florida,” said Fabian Sojos, who is director of grower relations. “Prime Time’s asparagus volume will continue to increase this year, including our volume from Peru. At Prime Time, we also have year-round organic asparagus production. We ship organic asparagus 52 weeks a year from our California locations.”
Sojos revealed that the company hired Josh Thorne in late 2021 as part of the Prime Time’s sales team. Thorne is currently focusing on asparagus sales, though he also handles a couple of other commodities for the grower-shipper.
Though Thorne did not come from a deep agricultural background, he was attracted to an ag career while attending Stetson University in DeLand, FL. He recalls that a college friend came from a farming family in Belle Glade in the southern part of the state and continually talked up farming as a career. “I love the people in the farming industry,” Thorne said. “They are good people.”
After graduating from Stetson in 2016 with a degree in business economics, he pursued a career in the ag industry and found a sales position in Florida for a grower-shipper headquartered in Arkansas. “We had a sales office in West Palm Beach where I worked for several years before joining Prime Time,” he said. “We mostly sold watermelons, pumpkins and corn.”
Thorne expressed delight that he picked an ag career for what he calls “the next chapter in my life.”
On this early September day, he was steeped in the thick of the Peruvian asparagus deal. “It’s a little tight until the end of the month, but then we are expecting it to loosen up,” he said.
Sojos, who is also based in Florida, noted that Peruvian asparagus production traditionally peaks in October and early November, which he claims are perfect times to promote the crop this season. “It is an exciting year to promote asparagus as we move away from supply chain issues, which plagued all industries during the pandemic,” he said.
Tim Linden
About Tim Linden | 
Tim Linden grew up in a produce family as both his father and grandfather spent their business careers on the wholesale terminal markets in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Tim graduated from San Diego State University in 1974 with a degree in journalism. Shortly thereafter he began his career at The Packer where he stayed for eight years, leaving in 1983 to join Western Growers as editor of its monthly magazine. In 1986, Tim launched Champ Publishing as an agricultural publishing specialty company.
Today he is a contract publisher for several trade associations and writes extensively on all aspects of the produce business. He began writing for The Produce News in 1997, and currently wears the title of Editor at Large.
