After 57 years in business, Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based The Ruby Co. remains in growth mode.
The national produce distribution and supply company has focused on providing a range of customers with whole fruits and vegetables, with an emphasis on potatoes and onions, said Josh Wolff, partner and director of growth and strategy.
“Within the last year-and-one-half, we have started to receive a lot of requests and interest in both fresh and IQF (individually quick frozen),” he said.
“We have been working to identify key fresh and frozen processing partners across the country that we can lean on, and who can act almost as an extension of our team,” Wolff said. “This has been a tremendous growth area for us.”
The company is cutting its teeth on its core commodities – onions and potatoes – for processing and now offers a variety of conventional and organic whole-peeled, slab and diced onions, as well as whole-peeled, blanched and shredded potatoes.
“We’ve been really excited about this because it’s a new venture and a new vertical for us to explore within the fresh produce space,” Wolff said. “As a business, we are always focused on finding new and innovative ways to increase our value proposition to our customer base.”
Incremental to potatoes and onions, The Ruby Co. is doing West Coast commodity processing for some specific regional and national foodservice chain accounts. That program includes apples, cabbages, leafy greens, zucchini, squashes, cauliflower, broccoli and other items.
Meanwhile, the company continues to expand its watermelon and pumpkin programs under Sweet Mama Produce, a subsidiary of The Ruby Co. The firm also has increased the number of nationwide shipping points from four or five last year to seven or eight this year.
“We are in a better position geographically to support regional distribution centers across the country,” Wolff said.
On the retail side, the company plans to expand its private-label capabilities.
“We’re working internally as well as with some key repacking partners across the country to support private-label retail packing,” he said.
Finally, The Ruby Co. continues to invest in proprietary data and analytical tools to support its internal business “and to provide fact-based analytics and service offerings back to our customers,” Wolff said.
“Largescale foodservice and distribution partners are wanting to leverage more data and analytics to review pricing, volume trends, commodity markets and ultimately make fact-based decisions,” he said. “As an organization, we see an opportunity to be at the forefront of this growing trend.”
