Healthy Trends in first full season
NOGALES, AZ — A new Nogales produce distributor, Healthy Trends, is in its first full year of shipping Mexican greenhouse and open field bell peppers.
Handling sales and marketing for the company is partner Bobby Astengo. Astengo previously worked nine years for Prime Time International, based in Coachella, CA.
Astengo was the sales and operations manager at Prime Time’s Nogales office. For seven years prior to that, he was the sales manager for Sysco FreshPoint, which has since closed its Nogales office.
Bernardi: It’s going to be an active spring
The latest hurricane season has all but faded to a memory for Joe Bernardi, president of Bernardi & Associates in Nogales, AZ, who is anticipating a good spring deal.
“People are excited to be out and about,” he told The Produce News in early February. “It’s going to be an active spring.” Traditional wisdom, he pointed out, holds that producers who make it to February without any significant impacts to crops from weather will be in good shape.
Calixtro looks forward to productive spring
RIO RICO, AZ — The calendar year in the Nogales deal had a rough start. But in February, Frank Calixtro, a salesman at Calixtro Distributing Co., Inc., said he looked forward to “hopefully more stable volume and good quality.”
Calixtro said his company “moves everything in Nogales.” This, of course, is a very wide range of Mexican produce.
MAS Melons & Grapes expanding products in 2015
RIO RICO, AZ — MAS Melons & Grapes, LLC, located here, is known as a major distributor of Mexican melons and grapes.
The company’s majority owner, Miguel (Miky) Suarez said a couple of new twists have been added to his offerings for this season.
“For the first time in our history, from Colima, we are shipping seedless watermelons,” Suarez said. “For the first time from anywhere, we have a very small deal in mini-watermelon.”
MAS Melons’ melon acreage is up 30 percent from a year ago.
GreenPoint anticipating expanded spring volumes
RIO RICO, AZ — The busiest time of the year is fast approaching for the produce marketing company, GreenPoint Distributing, LLC.
GreenPoint is run by brothers Octavio and Ernesto Gutiérrez, who own the 20-year old agricultural enterprise, Agricola Gutiérrez, based in Obregón, Sonora.
The brothers own GreenPoint, and are also independent in other endeavors as well.
Fresh Farms has strong spring program
RIO RICO, AZ — Beyond the current spring vegetable deal, the Mexican spring watermelon deal for Fresh Farms will begin in the first week of April, according to Jerry Havel, director of sales and marketing.
For Fresh Farms, the large-volume watermelon deal will run until July.
Havel said on Jan. 20 that it is “too early to tell when grapes will start. Typically, though, it is between May 1 and May 5.”
SunFed progresses in roll-out
RIO RICO, AZ — When a produce distributor has a broad product line that undergoes a total rebranding campaign involving many growers and packinghouses, the results can only evolve over time.
SunFed Produce, LLC, based here, announced such an effort in October at the PMA Fresh Summit in Anaheim.
On a Feb. 3 check-in with Brett Burdsal, who is the director of marketing for SunFed, he indicated that new three-count pepper bags are “shipping now to selected markets.” The three count peppers are either “stoplight” or “rainbow” mixes.
SCC expands into Mexican mango deal
NOGALES, AZ — “We are looking at a mango program that will start in April, and run in May, June and July,” said Sergio Chamberlain, president of SCC Fresh, LLC, located here.
The mangos will be sourced in the state of Nayarit, which is south of Sinaloa. Chamberlain is expecting to handle between 500,000 and 600,000 boxes of mangos. Chamberlain, who launched SCC in 2009, has sold Mexican mangos in the past, but this is a first venture into the category for SCC.
Grapes, watermelons highlight Sykes spring program
RIO RICO, AZ — Mexican grapes and watermelons will be the highlighted import items marketed by The Sykes Co., this spring. Company owner Bill Sykes said he will be primarily handling Flame and Sugraone grapes.
The grape deal will begin in the first part of May.
In late March or early April, Sykes, which is located here, will begin shipping Mexican seedless watermelons out of Hermosillo. “We are expecting a normal crop” of watermelons, said Bill Sykes, who started the firm in 1978.
Daily Fresh anticipates strong grape push
RIO RICO, AZ — The Mexican spring shipping season will bring a variety of products for Paul Bachelier, who handles marketing sales and service at Daily Fresh Distributing, Inc., based here.
The firm will be shipping the “Makio” cucumber until mid-May. That deal began the second week of December.
Bachelier is also “working on a couple of grape deals in the late spring and early summer,” he said.
Daily Fresh will be distributing squash through April or into early May.
Eggplant and Roma tomatoes are also in Daily Fresh’s offerings.