SunFed Summer Season Approaches With Expanded Operations In Texas
June 21, 2017 | 2 min to read
RIO RICO, AZ – With spring heating up and summer fast approaching, consumers’ minds tend to wander pleasantly toward tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants. These traditional summertime veggies are great for grilling as well as snacking, and SunFed® has Perfect Produce® from Texas to meet demand during the season and beyond.
“We’ve been operating in Texas for many years, but in terms of having a facility there and a full-on program, this is our third year,” said Craig Slate, VP of Sales. “So we’re anticipating a much larger program than we’ve had in the past. We’re excited to have squash as well as cucumbers, a large Roma program, and we will also be adding eggplant this year. Eggplant is not something we’ve had in Texas in the past, and that will hit mid- to late-summer.”
After its inaugural season, the company plans to take its eggplant program year-round, and SunFed hopes to eliminate seasonality from all its offerings in the long term. As year-round demand increases from consumers looking to keep that Summer feeling going, SunFed is working hard to meet customers’ needs with expanding growing programs in Texas, increased value-added offerings, and even new sustainably-sourced products to bolster the company’s lines.
“We envision a year-round program on everything that we’re doing,” Craig said, “with a smaller offering from November 1st through June 1st when Nogales will make up the larger portion of our operation.”
For SunFed, Texas serves as an important distribution hub from which the company can leverage its proximity to coastal markets to its advantage—particularly in the off season when decreased travel time can be a significant boon—providing optimally fresh product to consumers across the country.
“During the summer months, Texas is the natural destination point due to proximity of growing regions; whereas, because it’s a year-round opportunity, during the winter months, that is when we’re going to utilize our Texas operations to give us access to the entire East Coast,” noted Matt Mandel, Vice President of Operations. “It’s a freshness advantage in that the supply chain going to the east coast will shave a day—sometimes two—off of transit times compared to Nogales.”
With new category expansions, increased logistical capabilities, and the promise of new product offerings to be announced later this summer, the future is as bright as the Texas sun for SunFed.
About SunFed
Headquartered in the high desert of southern Arizona near Nogales, we are a fresh produce company with a passion for providing the highest quality fruits and vegetables, produced by the world’s finest growers. This passion and our commitment to developing FRESH INNOVATIONS have earned us a reputation for providing fruits and vegetables with extended freshness and consistent flavors, textures and colors. We are proud to be an industry leader in food safety, which is a culture ingrained throughout our company and backed up by technology, packaging and processes. We employ a team of food safety specialists who have set the highest standards in the fresh produce industry and then administer internal audits to ensure that we’re meeting or exceeding them.
Source: SunFed