VERNON, CA — Business has been steady but somewhat flat for Professional Produce, here, over the last year, but the company is looking forward to a period of growth in the coming year, according to President Ted Kaplan.

The lack of growth during the last 12 months was not due to the economy but to health issues. “I was ill for most of the year,” so “we just kind of floated along,” Mr. Kaplan told The Produce News June 20. “I’m doing better now.”

Professional Ted Kaplanhas recently expanded its product lines and has plans to add more products. In addition, the company is working on building its client base and its geographic reach.

“We are branching out into more distribution business,” Mr. Kaplan said. “Our customer base is expanding, and we are looking at more [accounts] in the East and the Midwest.” In particular, “we are looking at more foodservice chains,” including some of the larger foodservice companies.

“We have a good product to offer,” he said. “We got a little sluggish in our growth” for a time, “but I do feel that we are going to be on the upturn again.”

Along with that, “we are making changes in our product lines,” Mr. Kaplan said. “We are getting into some of the pre-packs” and also adding several items that the company had not previously handled on a regular basis.”

“We used to just be a house that did [mainly] tomatoes, vegetables and melons,” he said. “Now we are venturing” into other commodities. “We picked up a cherry deal this year” and have been successful at moving cherries. “We will probably be in a grape deal by next year, and maybe even a mango deal, so our mix is changing.”

In addition, the company is consolidating for customers.

Professional has historically provided service delivery in the Southern California area and is one of only a few companies in the region that can do deliveries every day of the week. “We do it because that is our customers’ need,” Mr. Kaplan said. “We have the ability to load and unload seven days a week here. Most companies don’t do that, and most companies you can’t talk to on the weekends. There is always somebody here to talk to.”

With regard to service delivery, he said, “We are pretty good in Southern California. We are now starting to focus outside of Southern California.”

Professional is also working at doing more of “what we can do best, which is raise the quality of our package,” Mr. Kaplan said. One component of that is to enhance the company’s food-safety protocols. “Today you have to have all proper documentation and follow-through,” he said. With all of the new rules regarding food safety, “you have to be ahead of the game. You can’t just be trying to keep up. You’ve got to be in the forefront, figuring out ways to track everything and be pro-active in that area. That is what we are doing here.”

When The Produce News talked to Mr. Kaplan, the company was also in process of bringing some new employees on board. “We’ve got some young people [who will be] starting out,” he said. They are recent college graduates and will be learning the business from the ground up, beginning with the graveyard shift in the warehouse so they will understand that the produce business is not just numbers on a computer.

“What produce really is, I feel, is getting a quality vegetable or fruit to the consumer that has flavor, at a price they can afford,” he said. Trying to impart that understanding of the business to the new young employees who would soon be joining the team at Professional Produce “is what we are going to strive to do for the next generation here,” he said.