A.J. Trucco Inc., a wholesaler, importer and distributor located on New York City’s Hunts Point Terminal Market, has been in the business of buying and selling dried figs, along with other dried fruit items and an assortment of in-shell nuts, for a long time.

“We have been doing this for many, many years,” said Salvatore (Sal) Vacca, president of the 76-year-old company.

“We are always trying to improve the package and to increase the volume, and we have been successful,” he said. The diminished seasonality of the market for imported dried figs is a good example of that.

“Years ago, come Jan. 1, nobody wanted to touch a package of Greek figs … or Turkish figs for that matter,” Vacca told The Produce News. “Now we sell them all year-round.”

Of course Thanksgiving and Christmas are still a big-volume period for the products, he said. But now business is steady throughout the rest of the year. “We’ve been selling Turkish figs all summer long.”

Trucco has been very successful with the imported Turkish figs, Vacca said. “Every year, the volume of the Turkish figs has been increasing.” Greek fig imports have declined, but “what we used to do years ago with the Greeks we do now with the Turkish. The Greek figs have been reduced quite a bit from what we used to bring years ago.” The Greeks just don’t have as many figs as they once did, he said, but the supply from Turkey has increased.

The price this year on both the Turkish and Greek figs is expected to be about the same as last year, he said. The company has been very successful in recent years with Turkish figs and is looking forward to an increased volume of figs from Turkey this year. He expected to be receiving those soon from the new crop. “As a matter of fact, I think next week they are shipping,” he said.

Trucco also handles dried figs from California. “We don’t have any prices” on those yet for this season, Vacca said, but he expected to have them within the week.

Dried Turkish apricots are another product Trucco handles, although “we are not very heavy on that,” Vacca said. But “we find that the Turkish apricots are tasty and, price-wise, cheaper than California [dried] apricots.”

In dates, “we deal with California dates, and the market has been pretty steady,” he said. Volume has increased on California dates, mainly to meet increased demand resulting from Muslim immigration. Because of that demand, “the market has been stronger than what it used to be.”

In the nut category, Trucco has been importing Italian chestnuts for many years and will again for the coming holiday season. The crop in Italy seems to be quite a bit smaller this year than it was last year, Vacca said.

On other nuts, with the exception of almonds “which are a little higher than last year” in price, Vacca said he had not yet received “any new offers” or any prices on the other nut varieties.

However, supplies of walnuts, filberts, pecans and brazil nuts were all expected to be “similar to last year.” Even so, he expects higher prices, “because it seems that China is busy looking to buy” tree nuts, mainly walnuts and pecans. ”We hear that the crops are pretty good,” but China has been coming in “quite heavily the last few years. That will change the market.”

He expected to get walnut prices by the middle of September, but “pecans are always late. Filberts are always late.”