Capespan North America with two main offices, one in Montreal and one in Philadelphia, imports citrus, grapes, apples, pears and stone fruit.

“On the imports side, the volumes of fruit we expect this year, both for the U.S. and for Canada will far exceed last year’s numbers,” said Mr. Marier, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Capespan North America. “We have a good supply source and large volumes.”

Capespan North America’s Paul Marier, senior vice president of sales and marketing, and Joe DiMichele, allocation, at the company’s St. Laurent, Quebec, office.“Chile is up in terms of volume,” he continued. “South Africa has a good, clean crop up from approximately 1.7 to 1.8-1.9 million cases in the U.S. market. Canada is getting a bigger share of market because European markets aren’t as attractive this year driving more fruit to Canada.”

“The one thing that’s tricky for us is California citrus (oranges) just clearing the market now, normally we expect them to be gone by the end of June, early July. There’s an overabundance of supply this year and some play on pricing caused the extension of the California citrus window which means we are all in the market at the same time.”

“One shift we’ve seen is clementines in the import season moving to 3-pound bags. Because a 5-pound box can be seen as expensive the shift to the smaller bag makes for a better retail number. $3.99 for a bag is appealing for consumers,” he added.

When asked about the recent announcement of the change of the company name from Fisher Capespan to Capespan North America, Mr. Marier said, “The name change speaks to what Capespan is trying to do and how it is positioning itself. It is indicative of the company’s move forward on a global scale. It affects us, but not that much, operations will continue, business as usual.”

Business as usual for the senior vice president of marketing and sales for both the U.S. and Canada is anything but routine.

“It’s about coming in and figuring out what problems you have today that you didn’t have the day before,” he said. “There’s a lot of problem resolution just given the perishable nature of the products we deal with. It’s about managing inventory, keeping tabs on the competition, keeping sales moving along, staying on top of the market and planning ahead.”

“It’s looking for opportunities, and asking ourselves where did we fall down and can improve. It’s about putting together the right program for our clients.”

“There’s such diversity of business — you have to know it all — operational, trucking, insurance, financing. It’s both challenging and stimulating. If you hate boredom you’re going to love the fruit business.”