From Mexico and More

Mangos have also benefited from improvements in handling, including temperature monitoring and controlled atmospheres to lengthen shelf life and improve flavor. It is interesting to note that while mango sales are slowly climbing in North America, in the rest of the world, they have been the most consumed fruit for years. Suppliers believe the top impediment to mass appeal is flavor, which is often harmed during the shipping process due to chilling injury. As a tropical fruit, mangos are very sensitive to cooler temperatures, and long-distance shippers often lower temperatures hoping to extend shelf life—which it may—but at the expense of flavor.

Food Safety & Vertical Integration
As with any type of perishable, food safety is a constant concern. Suppliers looking to import specialty produce rely on Global GAP certifications or sophisticated traceability processes to help ensure quality. For some businesses, this means cultivating direct relationships with grower-shippers in Mexico and Central America, or establishing their own growing operations.

Daniel Blazer, imports manager for Dekalb Farmers Market, Decatur, GA, says the family-owned retailer took a big step last year. “We developed our own sourcing program,” he notes, “shipping weekly from southern Mexico on a boat that docks at Port Manatee, Florida.”

The fruit comes from Dekalb’s own packinghouse in southern Mexico. The ability to supervise packing, handling, and shipping has already paid off, Blazer says. “You can make sure different crops are packed right, [to maintain] the best container temperature and atmosphere.” The company has plans to expand operations into northern Mexico too.

Hispanic produce can create unique challenges for suppliers—from shipping point to on-floor promotional displays. Blazer says it’s important for distributors and retailers alike to have a basic understanding of postharvest handling for less familiar commodities. A salmonella outbreak in 2011, in the popularmaridol papaya, still makes growers cautious. “Some growers are choosing not to ship papayas in the wet season,” explains Blazer, who sources papaya from growers in Mexico and Guatemala.

Category Management
Another unique requirement: different Hispanic items may require different sources. “Just because a supplier offers cilantro does not mean they’ll have jicama,” says Jeff Brechler of J&D Produce, a South Texas grower-shipper focused on greens.

Brechler, whose company has long shipped cilantro, offers product mixes fitting numerous ethnic groups. From his perspective, changes in Hispanic and other ethnic produce volumes are driven more by retailers operating by category management, rather than consumer diversity. “Retailers know the volumes and mixes their target market can handle,” he notes, such as recent increases in kale volume. In turn, he observes, “Growers respond to that retailer demand.”