NORTH KANSAS CITY, MO — C&C Produce Co., located here, is taking the “locally grown” produce category to new heights.

Nick Conforti, Sr., one of three C&C partners, hired Chris Shea, to lead C&C’s local product market development. “We have a lot of customers interested in the flavor profile” of locally-grown produce, Conforti said. “It is ripe and fresh. And, there is the support of the community, where it is important to the end consumer. But the most important of these is the flavor profile.”

Elaborating on that thought, Mike Griffith, C&C’s general manager and director of development noted “our customer base is not the typical ‘local’“ clientele.

Griffith added that C&C’s level of professionalism extends to working with growers to invest in the best seed and other such technical matters. “We are involved as a good business partner.” Growers can focus upon what they do best — grow — and allow C&C to handle logistics and sales.

Conforti said an affiliation with C&C brings local growers several advantages. First is the transportation to deliver product from the farm to end users. Second, Chris Shea has the communication skills to link locally grown product to the C&C sales staff, and thereby, their customers. Third, C&C has total sales of almost $120 million, so the wholesaler carries clout to move a lot of product. C&C customers know that local growers have been properly trained in food safety and other practices to supply reliable produce.

C&C’s local produce sales grew from $1.5 million in 2012 to $3 million in 2013. They are to top $6 million in 2014. Buyers of these products include farm markets but most of the volume goes to large produce wholesalers and retailers.

At C&C, Shea, who has been involved in local production and marketing since 1985, works with growers in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. To sell produce to C&C, these growers must either be GAP-certified, or have a pending food-safety certification. GAP certifications are very important to C&C’s customers, he added.

C&C’s market area is Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, St. Louis and Oklahoma City, with some sales into western Illinois and Texas. The firm operates 24 trailers and about 30 straight trucks. Retail customers are the firm’s largest sales segment, accounting for an annual $75 million. Foodservice sales are currently $38 million for C&C. Foodservice sales have been the company’s top growth area over the last four years, according to Conforti.

The firm heightens its customer service by offering items like flour, sugar and cheese. Shea noted, “We get premiere brands to differentiate ourselves” with these items. “We buy high-quality products.”

The smallest “local” grower in C&C’s program farms on six acres. The largest has 600 acres. On average, the local growers associated with C&C have 80 acres.

In early December, Shea hosted 50 different local growers to a seminar and tour held within a 20,000-square-foot construction project to expand the C&C warehouse.

Joe Cali, a partner in the firm, said the December event “exceeded my expectations. I look forward to doing it again next year.”

The construction project expansion is to accommodate C&C’s fast-growing “Cool Creations” precut operation, which was launched in Oct. 2009. “We have had huge growth and it continues to grow” in supplying foodservice customers, Conforti said.

Conforti started C&C with his brother, John Conforti, and Joe Cali in 1992. It was a time when other Kansas City wholesalers were closing. Cali buys and sells for the company and John Conforti handles the financial side. Mike Griffith, who joined the company in May 2013, “has been great for us,” Nick Conforti said. “He came with an MBA and ‘real world’ experience.”

The firm operates from a 200,000-square-foot facility that features nine separate coolers and 32 temperature-controlled docks. The building was previously the Fleming Foods produce distribution warehouse. The facility was upgraded in two separate efforts — first in 2008 and then finished in 2013 — to become a state-of-the-art cold chain controlled facility.

Griffith said that, with the exception of two quarters, C&C has expanded with 10 percent growth per quarter since 2008. “In the last quarter of 2013, we were up 12.5 percent.”

Conforti noted, “We have surrounded ourselves with really great people,” who have been loyal and stayed with the company for 15 years or more.