Sales remain strong in St. Louis as fall items arrive

Business remains brisk in the St. Louis market as produce distributors tweak their product lines to add traditional fall items.

“The market is as strong as ever,” said Sean Kelley, market manager at the St. Louis Produce Market.

“We are 100% occupied,” he said, with 14 owners on the site supplying the region with fresh fruits and vegetables.

The market completed the second part of its roof replacement project this year, so that now all the roofs on the 70-year-old facility have been replaced within the past couple of years.

“Business really does seem to be very busy for everybody on the market,” Kelley said.

Midstate Produce Co. on the market handles “the bread and butter of the industry,” like onions, iceberg lettuce, bananas and tomatoes, said Joe Sanders, owner and president. But the company now is placing a big emphasis on exotic items, like rambutan, dragon fruit, gooseberries, jackfruit and red bananas, which are sourced directly from shippers at ports of entry.

“Exotics are a growing section of our business,” Sanders said.

Buyers perceive Midstate Produce as a good source for exotics, since they don’t have to order a full pallet of products that may not appeal to all consumers, he said. The company goes out of its way to offer specialty items out of concern for its customers, Sanders said.

“Customer service is dying, and we focus on it,” he said. “We work harder than anybody else to find product for our customers and to service them.”

Business remains steady year-round at Midstate Produce, with its product line shifting slightly throughout the year.

The company brings in seasonal items, including larger supplies of watermelons in summer and adding pumpkins, mini pumpkins, gourds, and acorn and butternut squash in the fall.

Pumpkins start shipping in September, with the busiest period from the third week of that month until the third week of October. Then butternut squash picks up ahead of Thanksgiving.

Midstate Produce also ships some local items in the fall, such as fuji, jonagold, red delicious, gala, golden delicious and granny smith apples, winter hard squash and late summer soft squash, Sanders said.

The company serves primarily the Midwest and Southeast.

St. Louis-based Midwest Best Produce Inc. switches from its big, year-round push on watermelons to its seasonal pumpkin rotation in October, said Dan Pupillo, president.

Steady movement on pumpkins began the first week of September and was expected to continue until about Oct. 20.

Mexico provides a heavy supply of watermelons all year, and in winter ships cabbage, broccoli, peppers, mangoes and limes largely for the foodservice trade, he said.

Local products were winding down, though some were still available from Michigan in early fall. Most were transitioning to Texas, Mexico and Florida.

The company does ample volume in vegetables during the winter, consolidating in St. Louis to ship to surrounding states, Pupillo said. That program closes in summer, when local crops are available in various growing areas.

One long-time St. Louis Produce Market company closed its doors this summer.

After about 55 years, Vince Pupillo decided to close VMP Produce Co. in July.

Pupillo, whose father and grandfather were in the business as well, said he continues to do some part-time work for Vaccaro & Sons Produce on the market selling many of the commodities he sold at VMP, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and onions.

Midstate Produce Co. purchased the VMP building, he said.

Pupillo said he enjoyed his more than five decades in the industry.

“I liked all my customers,” he said. “They treated me with respect, and I tried to return that respect.”

Vaccaro & Sons has been acquired by GrubMarket Inc., a San Francisco-based food tech and e-commerce company that serves businesses and end consumers and provides food-chain software solutions, said Dale Vaccaro, general manager.

The company offers up to a dozen kinds of apples in the fall.

“There seems to be a bumper crop of Washington apples this year, so we’re promoting a lot of apples,” he said.

Other fall items are pumpkins, pomegranates, table grapes, and soon, California navel oranges.

“Volume sort of falls off in the fall because business at some local independent retailers falls off,” Vaccaro said.

Places like produce markets, roadside stands and seasonal-type vendors make up a niche market for Vaccaro & Sons, and that business dissipates at this time of year. But there is good news on the foodservice side.

“Foodservice seems to have picked up a little bit,” he said.

The company provides restaurants with a variety of salad items, like romaine, green leaf and iceberg lettuce, spring mix and tomatoes.

Although foodservice business is “getting close” to pre-pandemic levels, it still isn’t quite there, perhaps due to inflation, Vaccaro said.

“I’ve noticed that since the beginning of the year, consumers are watching their pennies a little bit more,” he said.

There also was good news in the potato and onion categories, which account for “a nice chunk of our business” but suffered from tight supplies the past couple of years, Vaccaro said.

“This year, there seems to a nice crop of both,” he said. “We’re seeing those markets come back to reality a little bit.”

Even with strong sales, St. Louis produce distributors continue to cope with inflation, which hasn’t shown many signs of waning.

“Inflation is not subsiding for me,” Sanders of Midstate Produce said.

Fuel and labor are some of the expenses that continue to rise.

“It’s the consumer who takes the hit, because we have to pass it on,” Sanders said.

But even though shoppers may be trimming their grocery lists, Midstate Produce has not experienced a drop in sales, he said.

Even movement on exotics remains robust because retailers still want to offer their customers variety to set themselves apart from competitors, Sanders said.

Costs are up across the board, and suppliers have to transfer those cost increases to customers, agreed Pupillo of Midwest Best Produce.

Transportation costs hit a peak and have begun to settle down, though they still are higher than in past years because of the higher fuel and other costs truckers have to take on, he said.

Costs of fuel, fertilizer and other farm inputs also have risen, Pupillo said. “The whole industry suffers the same pains.”

Vaccaro of Vaccaro & Sons said many skyrocketing costs have started to level off, but labor costs are not going down.

“To retain good help, [workers] need to be paid,” he said. “That market is not coming off at all.”