Why some produce is inexpensive in the Chicago area

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While rejection and overstocks can happen in any town, Chicago has the perfect infrastructure to get this excess produce into consumer hands quickly and cheaply.

“Chicago is a very unique market because there are so many independent operators and you have a thriving and flourishing wholesale market,” says Pam Riemenschneider, editor of Produce Retailer magazine. “But where I live in Austin, Texas, for example, we have two major markets and you are not going to see a whole lot of fluctuation in those set ad prices at either of those operations. So you guys are lucky.”

Chicago’s wholesale district is located in the Pilsen neighborhood, near I-55. There are several wholesalers at the Chicago International Produce Market, but there’s another 10 acres of climate-controlled produce at Anthony Marano Company. There, salespeople sell fresh produce to buyers who represent some of the region’s biggest and smallest stores. But prices can change by the day and the hour, based on relationships, trust, weather, supply, demand and lots of haggling.
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Cathy2 wrote:Joe,

When you lived in the area, did you go to STanley's or Jerry's? They do have a lower price point than many stores in the area.

Regards,
CAthy2

Cathy2 wrote:

LAZ wrote:Meanwhile, I noticed this item on the Garden Fresh web site:

Take a ride with Adi to the South Water Produce Market. For more details, call Julie at (847) 520-1200 or set a date at any one of the Garden Fresh Market stores.

Anyone done that?

Yes, and so did you!

A bonus of working as an election judge is meeting a number people I want to meet incidentally. One of those was Adi Mor who was easy to spot in his Garden Fresh Market jacket. I advised my friends and I were very interested in taking this tour. He gave me his card to contact him later, which I did the very next day. A week later, several of us met Adi and several employees at 3:30 AM in the parking lot of the Northbrook store. We were impressed when he asked everyone who was leaving their car to park to the rear of the parking lot. He wanted the choice front spaces reserved for customers.

We followed Adi's car south to the wholesale vegetable and fruit markets at I-55 and Archer Avenue. Our first stop was to Anthony Marano Company's huge several hundred thousand square foot warehouse. While Anthony Marano may not be generally recognizable name, their move to this location in the early 90's sealed the fate of the older South Water Street market.

Produce or perish wrote:One of the city's largest produce wholesalers is ready to move from the aging South Water Market, leaving other merchants scrambling for new space and spelling the eventual end of the 73-year-old market.

Breaking ranks with the mart's other businesses, Anthony Marano Co. has signed a contract to purchase about one-third of Ashland Marketplace, a 557,000-square-foot distribution center planned by real estate firm Hiffman Shaffer Associates Inc. on a 27-acre site bounded by Ashland Avenue on the east, Damen Avenue on the west and the Stevenson Expressway on the south.

This huge multistory warehouse had a futuristic feel with an eat-off-the-floor spotlessly clean environment. Workers zipped silently around on electric forklifts, including executives who used them for transportation around this vast space. The warehouse is divided into seven compartments with temperature and humidity controlled for optimal storage:
- Onions and potatoes: Mark
- Berries: Tony
- Fruit: Johnieo
- Tomatoes: Wayne & Jr.
- Peppers: Jimmy
- Bananas: Don
- Lettuce: Art & Damen
Each of these areas have an executive responsible for relations with the growers from purchase to delivery as well as settling on prices with the buyers. Marano's relies on a network of relationships to stock their warehouse that turns over 150 times a year.

Marano's had a crew unpacking tomatoes, sorting them for size with custom equipment they built themselves, then repacking those who met the size criteria for their fast food customers.

Every night managers of the various Garden Fresh Market locations send in their inventory requests. Garden Fresh has several people who work full time at Marano's selecting and negotiating purchases. They walk the floors personally tasting the fruits and vegetables before settling on price and quantity. In the raspberry room, we saw various grades of raspberries from looking picture perfect and tasting sour to those who were sweet, delicate and could quickly tip to over ripe. The Garden Fresh employees doing the wholesale purchases are granted quite a bit of decision making latitude to acquire good deals whenever they avail themselves. This may translate to a price adjustment to help move these deals faster into a consumer's market basket. Those delicate and sweet raspberries might be a candidate to move fast if the price is right. Or there might be fierce negotiations punctuated with shouts or a bit of shadow boxing to reach a price compromise. Occasionally Garden Fresh bites the bullet to purchase desireable seasonal products, like Thanksgiving cranberries, to sell at a loss to attract customers. Once everything is selected, then Garden Fresh Market sends in their trucks to collect and distribute fruits and vegetables to their stores.

At the conclusion of the tour at Marano's, we were invited to their top floor offices for fresh fruit, coffee and juice. Their boardroom, kitchen, offices and bathrooms were painted entirely in trompe l'oiel, which was rather astonishing. I accidentally walked into the men's room because I failed to notice the male motif painted above the door. They have a barbershop with vintage chairs for the barber who comes once a week to treat their crew and clients a trim. When one of the ladies inquired if they could get a trim, they were advised, "This is a men's world here!" Until that moment, I hadn't recognized the only women present were those in our touring party. They also offer car washes gratis to customer's, too. I asked Adi if he took advantage of these offers, he does not. I can understand his position very well. You don't want a free haircut or car wash to get in the way of negotiating a purchase where a savings of a some cents could translate into hundreds or thousands of dollars in costs and profits.

We also talked about the business of produce beyond the Chicago marketplace:

When we were talking about their supply chain. I mentioned the issue with domestic USA rice being sold here and abroad at world prices. They commented for the first time last year, they observed USA grown cherries never sold less than $3/pound at peak season. This was due to the weak dollar and high international demand for cherries with much of our domestic production going to Europe where they commanded a higher price than domestically.

On the domestic front, they also commented the demand for fruits and vegetables have also increased. Maybe ten years ago, someone visiting a market in Chicago from Iowa would be blown away by the variety available to us. These same varieties can now be found in Iowa and other smaller markets, increasing demand for a these same fruits and vegetables. Increased demand, relatively fixed quantity of goods and prices stay up.

Markets are competing for the same goods both internationally and domestically. These increased demands creates higher prices, which is quite divorced from the financial markets.

We next visited the Chicago International Produce Market adjacent to Anthony Marano's, which had very much the hustle and feel I once experienced at South Water Street market years ago. Walking up we saw a number of trucks from various produce markets discussed on this board. While I very self-conciously picked up and wiped the area when I dropped a raspberry at Marano's. I could easily drop any fruit at the International Produce Market and simply walk over it, because there were so much produce debris. While Marano's had a vast space organized for efficent operation. The Chicago International Produce Market was organized into a series stalls with truck size garage openings with tall and narrow warehouse space with produce boxed, stacked and crowded together. What was a departure from the South Water Street were the very elaborate and elegant office spaces in each of the few stalls we visited. One had glass wall separating the warehouse from the office with a floating staircase. When one producer offered a taste demonstration of an exotic fruit, he went to his computer to pull up images of the fruit on the tree and some botanical details. Standing there, you had your foot in the past and present of the produce market.

Garden Fresh Market's ad pages wrote:Adi's Corner

Great Quality Produce at a very competitive price is always a challenge in today'a market. I have been buying produce for over 30 years. Here at Garden Fresh Market, I personally oversee our expert buyers who buy our top quality produce at the very best price day after day. We are at the market each and everyday at 4:00 am. We hand pick and taste everything to find the very best quality produce and then secure it at the very price for you everyday!

Not everybody in Chicagoland spends the time and energy that we do to be the very best! This is why you can count on Garden Fresh Market to have the very best quality and the very best prices.

Thank you for your business.
Adi Mor

From the tour we took recently, there is nothing here I would dispute about the effort they make to stock their produce department. It was definitely a worthy use of our time and a visit to a part of Chicago largely unknown to me and one of the tour guests said, "One of the most revealing glimpses behind the works in the city."

Thank you, Adi and to your staff!

Regards,