John Durante, president of Nardella Inc., located at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, told The Produce News that the company’s sales representative, Mike Reed, is leading the company’s new Ethnic produce program, and he’s doing an outstanding job at it.

“The program started about six months ago and has taken off incredibly well,” said Mr. Durante.

Mr. Reed said that he approached Mr. Durante about adding the line to the company’s already wide fruit and vegetable list of products last fall.

“I have many friends who are from Mexico,” Mr. Reed explained. “And through them I learned a lot about the foods they want to eat here in the U.S. So I spoke to John and he agreed to give the line a try.”

The program is strong in typical Mexican products, such as dried and fresh specialty peppers. In its fresh line, Nardella is offering the most popular of the hot peppers; jalapeno, serrano and poblano. These, along with tomatillos, cactus leaves and cactus pears are being produced in Mexico during its season and in other areas of the Americas when needed.

“Some of these items are really surprising,” said Mr. Reed. “Cactus leaves, for example, are hugely popular among Hispanics. And they have an insane amount of nutritional benefits. They are great for diabetes and blood pressure. It’s a real superfood. Hispanics typically scale the thorns off and pan-grill them.”

The line includes cilantro, “and a lot of it,” Mr. Reed noted. The company also offers aloe vera, water coconut and papaya and mangos, also from Mexico. The line is varied enough to also appeal to Asian clients, whose diets include products similar to those of Hispanics.

“We’re also handling guava, both the Mexican and Thai types,” said Mr. Reed. “And we’re handling ginger and garlic from China and dragonfruit from Vietnam. The line also includes limes and avocadoes out of Mexico.”

One of the biggest surprises in Nardella’s successful ethnic venture is corn tortillas.

“These are made in Georgia, and we just took a shot at trying them,” said Mr. Reed. “We started last October with about five cases a week, and now we’re selling about 50 cases a week.”

Mr. Durante said that the new PWPM terminal market is helping to open doors like this new program to tenants because they have more space and much greater efficiencies than they did at the old terminal.

“It’s not so much that we enjoy it — which we of course do — but that our customers enjoy it,” said Mr. Durante. “Time is of essence for them. The new facility offers plenty of parking, and it is well organized so that they can get into the market, do their business and get out in just a portion of the time that they had to spend on the old market. It really helps them to increase their productivity.”

He added that none of the tenants, in his opinion, went into the new terminal blind-sighted or naive. They knew that it was going to be more expensive, and that it would take some time for business to catch up with the added overhead they all faced when they took occupancy.

“Combine the added expense with the downed economy, and it’s clear to see that people have had to tighten their belts,” said Mr. Durante. “And it’s probably going to be a few years more before people feel economically secure here. But the majors are coming to us more and more because our product is fresher, especially in the summer.”

“And product lasts longer,” he continued. “If it is taking longer to sell an item, I can see that I have few more days. On the old terminal it would not have lasted because we could not have kept it chilled. This alone is a huge advantage. I don’t have a single regret. It’s a sheer pleasure to work from this new facility.”

Nardella is in the blue section, units G-4 through G-6, of the facility. The company specializes in fruits from around the world. It handles all stone fruits, citrus, grapes and tropical items. It imports apples, grapes and numerous other products from South America, South Africa and New Zealand in order to provide its customers with year-round service.