Pandol Bros. Inc., a Delano, CA-based firm with deep roots in the table grape industry, has put down new roots with the opening of a state-of-the-art office building adjacent to its cold storage facility.

Chief Executive Officer Cheri Diebel said that the previous office building served the company for about seven decades, but she indicated it was time for an upgrade. The new office building has 11,000 square feet of space and all the bells and whistles associated with a new facility. “I believe we were in the old office since the 1940s,” she quipped.

Diebel noted that the location is advantageous as it gives the sales staff an opportunity to see what’s going in the carton on a continual basis. Though the old office was also in Delano, it was about six miles from the cold storage facility.

Pandol Bros. Inc. recently opened an 11,000-square-foot state-of-the-art office building adjacent to its cold storage facility.As she discussed the new facility with The Produce News, Diebel said shipping of the firm’s San Joaquin Valley production was just getting under way. Pandol is an active participant with regard to importing grapes into the United States from Chile, Peru and Mexico, but California forms the foundation for the firm, and has since the first generation of Pandols began farming Delano ground in the 1940s. Today, the family-owned company includes third- and fourth-generation family members.

Diebel has been the CEO for the past half dozen years, after serving as the chief financial officer for 10 years prior to that. She has been with Pandol for about 37 years.

The company has a full complement of red, green and black grapes that will be produced in the San Joaquin Valley over the next six months.

“Sugar Crunch is just about to get started,” she said on July 10. “Our production is up this year and we are very excited about this variety.”

Sugar Crunch is not a proprietary variety but rather Pandol’s presentation of a variety often marketed as Ivory. “It’s not proprietary but we think we grow it better than anybody else and many people agree with us,” Diebel said.

Pandol began experimenting with the variety six to eight years ago and harvested its first commercial crop about three years ago. Its production has been increasing every year since.

The firm’s CEO also touted Sweet Celebration, a red seedless variety. This is another relatively new variety that is licensed to a limited number of growers. Again, Diebel said Pandol does an excellent job of growing this grape, which she said has excellent flavor, size, color and crunch. Flavor and size, she said, are the two most important attributes that are driving new varietal development in the grape category.

Pandol is experimenting with several proprietary varieties, but Diebel said introduction is probably about two to three years off.

The company ships around 7 million cartons of grapes per year, with California accounting for a bit more than half of that volume. About 3.5 to 4 million cartons come from California with about 2 million imported from Chile and Peru and another 1.3 million cartons originating in Mexico. The firm has always been a leading player both sourcing internationally and selling internationally with the late Jack Pandol getting much credit for introducing Chilean grapes to U.S. consumers.