Best known for potatoes, onions and sweet potatoes, Wada Farms Marketing Group LLC is becoming increasingly recognized for watermelons, and has recently announced a major expansion in its watermelon program, with year-round supplies coming from numerous production areas.

Heading that expansion effort will be Fran Torigian, a 44-year veteran of produce sales and marketing, whom Wada Farms, based in Idaho Falls, ID, has named to fill a newly created position of vice president of sales and new business development for its Eastern Division, headquartered in Raleigh, NC.

Torigian’s wife, Susi Torigian, will also be working in sales in the North Carolina office.

The husband-and-wife team have been partners in their own produce marketing operation, Agro Fresh Sales LLC, in Florida for several years.

Torigian got his start in 1977 at OK Produce in Fresno, CA, before becoming sales manager at Tri-Produce in Firebaugh, CA. He later formed his own brokerage company, Torigian Marketing LLC. Subsequently, he relocated to Florida where he headed sales and marketing for Central American Produce in Pompano Beach.

Susi Torigian was a Doctor of Chiropractic, working in her family’s chiropractic business in Fresno before moving to Florida.

Wada Farms first began watermelons to help some of its sweet potato growers in North Carolina that grow watermelons as rotation crops, and the program has grown every year.

The Torigians have found a home in Wake Forest, NC, and expect to relocate there from Florida in June.

In addition to watermelons, Wada Farms’ Eastern Division will be diversifying into some other commodities such as asparagus and butternut squash.

Torigian told The Produce News that when he visited the Wada Farms headquarters in Idaho Falls recently and met with President Kevin Stanger, Vice President Joe Esta, and other team members there, he was impressed by how many people have been working for the company for 20 or 25 years. “That is fantastic. To me that says something about the company. That is a good company to work for and to be part of,” he said. ‘”I am so impressed with Kevin, with his vision for the company and with the way he interacts with people. Watermelon is an exciting product and a perfect fit for Wada Farms,” he added.

Torigian has been spending a lot of time on the road meeting with both growers and customers, many of whom he already knows, some of whom he has been working with for years, and some of whom are already doing business with Wada. In his travels, he has been impressed by how many people, without hesitation, speak highly of Wada Farms. “That makes it nice for a guy like me when you are going out and talking to growers and talking to customers,” he said.

Wada was currently bringing in watermelons from Mexico, but production would ramp up for the company in a big way starting out of central Florida in April. From then on, Torigian expected to have steady year-round volume working with watermelon growers in Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, the Carolinas, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Delaware and Maryland through spring and summer, then moving back into Mexico in October.

He plans to travel to Central America over the next few months to line up a winter watermelon program with growers out of Honduras and Guatemala, filling out the year.