“We offer a complete and full selection of organic produce — from cactus leaves to broccoli — in our line,” said Simcha Weinstein, director of marketing for Albert’s Organics, headquartered in Santa Cruz, CA. “We handle well over 300 produce items in all.

Simcha Weinstein, director of marketing for Albert’s Organics“We are currently promoting organic blueberries from Chile and organic mangos from Peru, and of course our winter time citrus,” he continued. “But we often work on getting our customers excited about the non-seasonal items that come from southlands and offer a bit of a taste of summer during the cold winter season.”

Albert’s Organics sources produce from all over the world in order to have a complete selection year round. It has a dedicated national procurement team that sources its full product line nationally and internationally.

“With eight distribution centers in the United States, we also place a strong emphasis on locally and regionally grown food,” Mr. Weinstein added. “Our buyers at each division do an excellent job of working with the growers that are local to their areas.”

The company services independent, small chain and large chain retail stores, wholesalers, distributors, foodservice operations and industrial operations. When the company began in 1982, the majority of its customers were natural foods stores because they were the primary avenue for selling organic and natural foods at the time.

“Today, we have a nice balance in our customer base of natural food stores, chain supermarkets, restaurants and foodservice groups, as well as industrial operations,” added Mr. Weinstein. “We are a nationwide distributor, and in fact, Albert’s was the first certified organic distributor with nationwide coverage.”

Despite the economic downturn over the past few years, and the slow, spotted signs of only minimal recovery, Mr. Weinstein said there is very good news to print about organic sales.

“In 2011, the organic industry grew at a rate of 9.5 percent, increasing to over $29.2 billion in sales,” he said. “During this same year conventional U.S. food sales grew by only 4.7 percent, so it seems that relative to the baseline standard, organic is doing quite well. The organic food sector grew by $2.5 billion last year with organic fresh produce contributing just shy of 50 percent of those new dollars. Organic fruits and vegetables accounted for over 40 percent of the total organic food sales from 2011.”

He added that the total organic fruit and vegetable sales are now at 12 percent of the overall produce market share.

“These numbers are significant, and they show that while our economic recovery is a bit sluggish, people are not only continuing to purchase organic foods, but they are increasing their organic choices and clearly new shoppers of organic foods are coming on board,” said Mr. Weinstein.