D’Arrigo New York enjoying steady business in 2022

D’Arrigo New York has a rich history as part of the Hunts Point Produce Market and is one of the most prominent produce players in New York state.

The company is situated on Row C, evolving from four stalls in 1948 to 36 stalls today. It also has a piece of property across the street, and another facility at 1303 Randall Avenue, about a half mile away. That added another 35,000 square feet additional to the 112,000 square feet it operates on the market.

“The Bronx and Hunts Point is centrally located for the most part from New York City, so we can get to every borough,” said Gabriela D’Arrigo, vice president of marketing for the company. “This is the industrial area. There wasn’t any housing here when the market was built. Now that’s changing, but we want to remain because the history is here and it’s centrally located and quite frankly, it would be quite an effort to move.”

D’Arrigo New York is enjoying a successful 2022 early on and is optimistic about what’s ahead.

“Business has been good so far, it’s been steady,” D’Arrigo said. “There’s been nothing crazy. We’ve had some slow weeks for sure, but sprinkled in there have been some weeks of some action, which has been nice. It’s definitely an improvement from 2021 and 2020.”

Bad weather can be blamed for some of the slower days, but as D’Arrigo points out, once the weather starts to get nicer, things always pick up fast at Hunts Point.

A lot has changed for the better at Hunts Point over the last two years, with D’Arrigo explaining that there were changes that started to be put in place before the pandemic, but the pandemic was definitely the catalyst for getting them done a lot faster.

“A major theme that came out of the pandemic was there were always excuses as to why something couldn’t get done — whether it was the way the market runs or the environment we’re in — but once the pandemic hit, all of those excuses essentially didn’t exist anymore,” she said. “It was interesting to watch the evolution and seeing everyone commit to it. That was a big positive in my opinion.”

That spirit has carried into a lot of other avenues across Hunts Point over the past year.

“I know with us here, being able to see that we can implement these changes and it doesn’t need to take 10-12 years, now we know not everything has to be gradual and we can implement things and have them be instantaneous,” D’Arrigo said.

Of course, being a big hub where trucks are coming and going all the time, the freight challenges have been a big problem for all those who work at Hunts Point, D’Arrigo New York included.

“The cost of freight and the cost of goods is at the forefront of our minds,” D’Arrigo said. “We’ve been fortunate that a lot of the issues with the supply chain haven’t affected produce as much as it has other industries. Produce has a resilient supply chain, but we’re starting to see the impact of that now.”

With that, D’Arrigo New York is trying to remain as consistent as possible in the service industry, to get people goods in a timely manner.

“People are really looking at how they take care of themselves much more closely and what you put in your body ultimately effects how you look, feel and what your health is,” D’Arrigo said. “A lot of immunity-boosting items have remained popular since the pandemic hit.”

D’Arrigo is cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the year as people start to go back to living their lives as close to normal as possible.