Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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greens, mezuna, Swiss chard, and red frill mustard greens. Produce is picked every day so that it reaches customers' doors within eight to 12 hours. "You can't get any fresher than that," Sylvia says. "Probably the most important thing is that we're willing to try things. We take the lead and then bring chefs in from all over the place—restaurateurs, caterers— and have them try it," he continues. Swiss chard has taken off. "I started playing with it a few months ago and it's just zoomed. We're selling 300 percent more than the first week we started." Despite best efforts by Jansal Valley Farm and the greenhouse, some foods sim- ply won't grow in New England in the winter. Artichokes and bananas are two examples. "I had banana trees that lasted until November 6," Sylvia says. "They grew to 17 feet tall, but no bananas." Produce: Six Inventory Turns Per Week Sid Wainer & Son's 300,000-square-foot warehouse stores packaged and perishable specialty foods and produce, including prod- ucts the company imports from all over the world. The produce inventory turns six times per week, says Allie Wainer. Perishables are stored in eight tem- perature-controlled areas depending upon ideal conditions for individual varieties. Temperatures throughout the warehouse are monitored all day, with an alarm alert- ing the operations manager if conditions rise or drop beyond the ideal. Shipments arrive 24/7. Product is packed on-site and loaded onto trucks, or air-shipped directly from the facility. Each box displays the customer name, number, truck ID, and product, and is scanned before loading. Trucks have GPS units to allow for easy tracking, and drivers continue to monitor internal temperature en route so they can report it to customers upon arrival. Warehouse activity picks up by late afternoon and is bustling by 9 p.m. Ninety percent of the day's orders are out of the building by 4 a.m. In the morning and early afternoon staff is busy restocking and beginning to assemble orders for the next day, Simas explains. While the mix includes plenty of hard- to-find and little-known varieties (Buddha's hand, horned melon, lollipop kale), even S A V O R Y R I C E S N A C K KAMEDA USA, INC. Phone (310) 944-9639 info@kamedausa.com © 2014 KAMEDA USA, INC. A Perfect Complement to the Salty Snack Section Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 5214 "We have a person on staf who goes through orders to make sure the tomatoes are the right color. When a chef orders it, it has to be ready to be used today, not in three days." SPRING 2014 45 FactoryTour_Spring2014.indd 45 3/18/14 2:39 PM