Business booms in Boston

Despite the challenges of inflation and the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, business overall seems to be strong for produce suppliers in the Boston area market.

Peter Condakes Co. Inc., based at the New England Produce Center, Chelsea, Mass., is having a “somewhat better summer than last year” with tomatoes, its biggest-selling item, said President Peter John Condakes. “Tropicals are humming along, as well,” he said. Vegetable sales are even with last year, and fruit sales are down a bit.

The company is heavy into local vegetables, especially at this time of year.  “We’ve been doing local since 1900 — basically since the company was founded,” Condakes said.

Peter Condakes Co. offers a full line of products, including squash, peppers and beans, he said, and sources from growing areas that include Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as Massachusetts. The company has the same basic product line year-round but adds local apples as the season progresses.

Business also was on the rise at Chelsea-based Community-Suffolk Inc., said president Steven Piazza. “It’s been an up year for us,” he said.  Product was tight for a lot of commodities, as was transportation, he said, “and that kept us very, very busy all summer.” The company’s key product line includes potatoes, carrots, cabbage, beets, celery, broccoli, leaf lettuces, onions, squash and citrus. “We like to concentrate on the items that we are best at in quality and volume,” Piazza said. “We’re consistent with our supply, we’re consistent with our shippers.”

Business is pretty much back to pre-pandemic levels at J Bonafede & Sons at the New England Produce Center, said Gene Fabio, an owner and president. “COVID is definitely in our rearview mirror,” he said.

J Bonafede & Sons has a year-round concentration on tropical items, such as bananas, pineapples, mangoes, limes, papayas and avocados, Fabio said. The company also is increasing its emphasis on ethnic items, such as mangosteen, lychees and rambutan.  A possible exception to the upward sales trend for some Boston companies may be the foodservice category. “For the most part, (foodservice business) has come back, but there are certain elements that haven’t come back 100%,” Fabio said. “Some things seem like they’ve changed for good.”

Some commissary business is off a bit because many office buildings have not returned to full capacity, he said. And hospitals still discourage public traffic. “If you go to downtown Boston, it’s not as busy as it was four years ago,” he said. He estimated that there are 20% fewer people on the streets.

Other companies reported pretty much a return to normal in their foodservice business.  “Foodservice is doing pretty well right now,” Condakes said.  Like Fabio, he said sales to office cafeterias have been slower to recover. “Company cafeterias have not come back,” Condakes said. “A lot of people aren’t back in the office yet.”

“Foodservice customers did a good job (during the pandemic) pivoting from servicing restaurants and got into government-supported distribution or home deliveries — like food boxes,” Condakes said.

Retail business picked up during the COVID-19 pandemic, but has since dropped a little, as retailers returned to buying direct from suppliers, he said.

“We helped a lot of retailers out when they had warehouse issues, due to illness or whatever,” he said.

The company scheduled a number of direct store deliveries during the pandemic, which it normally does not do.

Foodservice business dropped precipitously when restaurants were forced to shut down at the beginning of COVID-19, Piazza said.

“Unfortunately, we lost a lot of great restaurants in Boston and the surrounding area,” he said.
But many eateries have bounced back and capitalized on takeout food and outdoor seating, he said.

“After making it through the dry spell, the ones that did survive are financially sound and doing good business,” Piazza said. Foodservice sales at Community-Suffolk are back to pre-pandemic levels, he said.

They were down 30% for the first three or four months of the pandemic.

“We actually made up some of that volume that we lost to foodservice with the retail guys by continuing to have supply in our key product line,” he said.

“During COVID, when transportation and product was very tight, we were still being supplied by our very old relationships with our shippers.”