Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, the watermelon you pick up at the local market will be square — the better to fit in your fridge. You might eat something called a "pluot," which is a genetic cross between a plum and an apricot. The asparagus on your restaurant plate may give way to tiny, thumb-size zucchini and squash. And increasingly, the produce you buy and eat will come from around the globe.
These are all trends that are apparent at the Tampa Wholesale Produce Market, 2801 E. Hillsborough Ave., the crossroads of produce in Tampa. The market is located in a big, un-airconditioned brick building that sits far enough off the street so the massive semis can roll in with loads of strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, lettuce and thousands of other items. This is the home of 12 wholesale produce companies and about 20 wholesale produce brokers.
The produce comes to the facility's stained, grubby loading docks from across the U.S., and, increasingly, from the far corners of the world as well.
"That's the free trade (agreements)" explained Michael B. Mountain, terminal market inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. His office sits on the second floor of the market building, and it's his job to insure the produce that comes through the market on its way to retail meets government standards for quality. "We get stuff from Canada, China, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil, New Zealand, Italy; anything grown in the world might end up here."
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT) encourage commerce among nations without tariffs or other artificial barriers. It's partly these treaties' loosening effect on trade and partly the produce industry's changing economic face that have transformed what once was essentially a local fruit-and-vegetable market into an international crossroads.
"It's become more international, with refrigeration and transportation (advances)," said Pete Murphy, a partner who works at Shamrock Produce & Brokerage, a firm that brokers fruit between growers, shippers and large buyers, like supermarkets and chain stores. "It's a worldwide market.
"There's been a lot of consolidation in the industry; large corporate growers are taking over the market," he said. "For mom-and-pops, it's hard to compete."
Tom Joseph, the market's general manager, remembers when a loading dock that sat just outside the market building would attract 80 to 100 farmers each day to sell their locally grown produce. The market charged them $5 to park, and they would pull their trucks up to the loading dock, where they hawked fresh turnip greens, strawberries, eggs, flowers, watermelon, beans, squash and other items they grew themselves.
"Now, we only have five or so of them," he said, gesturing to the empty lot that once was a meet-and-greet spot for small farmers.
Before NAFTA, before fast shipment by air and sea, before sophisticated refrigeration, the city's wholesale produce was sold in various places in Ybor City, a simple outdoor affair between the farmer who grew the goods and the customer. In 1934, the wholesale market was established to bring together all the producers, buyers and sellers to a single, more efficient place, Joseph said.
In the old days, because of the heat, the seller had to get rid of all his produce the same day to avoid spoilage. But now, with huge walk-in refrigeration units set amid the produce company stalls, the shelf life is much longer, Joseph said, further changing how the market operates.
And increasingly, the face of the buyer is changing too. Now, the produce sellers see smaller-scale customers, such as owners of local restaurants and others in the food service industry. (The market is open to the public, but most individual shoppers would find the quantities of produce for sale too large.) Supermarket chains still order produce that physically goes through the market, but the actual transactions that once were done every day in person are now done via computer, fax or phone.
The wishes of the retail customer affect the produce market as well. The cluttered USDA office illustrated this with a newspaper clipping stating how a Japanese firm had genetically altered watermelons to make them square, so they might better fit in the customer's fridge. Though the article, published last year, said the weird watermelons cost $87 apiece, it typifies another truth of the produce business: Genetic tinkering and its results are significantly affecting the entire industry.
"They're refrigerator-friendly fruit," said Johnnie Holloway, a USDA inspector, with a laugh. He added that similar genetic engineering has created a fruit called a "pluot" (ploo-ought), a cross between a plum and an apricot that produces a reddish fruit with white spots. It's grown in California and Chile. "Because of the spots, I guess, they put dinosaurs on the box," he explained.
One business, located directly across the street from the market, plumbs the fickle fantasies of modern produce buyers and reads the tea leaves of the future.
Cooseman's of Tampa handles what is known in the biz as "specialty produce," the brave new world of odd stuff that will be next year's fad fruit or veggie that gourmands want for their restaurants and kitchens.
"Fresh herbs are going crazy," reported Justin Warren, the firm's general manager, as he led a visitor through the company's carefully-cooled storage rooms, piled high with boxes of Belgian endive, habanero hot peppers and radicchio.
Another upcoming fad? He pointed to small boxes of produce and pulled out a tiny, thumb-size zucchini. "Baby vegetables are a big trend," he said.
Nearby were baby sunburst squash and tiny green sunbursts, which Warren said restaurateurs liked because they were so cute and colorful, and look better on a plate than that dull old standard, asparagus.
Also on the radar: French beans, delicate green beans that are thinner than their American cousins and are grown in South America; Chinese long beans that look like shoelaces and "cherry bombs," small peppers that have been bred to be simultaneously hot and sweet; Japanese eggplant, long, dark and stringy; and Chinese eggplant, lighter purple than our varieties.
And what is his best-selling fruit?
"Mango, definitely mango," he replied. "Mango outsells every other fruit."
Even though the Tampa Wholesale Produce Market has become a bustling international concern that meets the needs of a growing metropolis, some of its workers pine for the old days. "(Big corporations) can bring it here cheaper," said one longtime employee of a produce company that sells green onions from Guatemala and red and orange peppers from Holland. "The farmers here can't make it. It's so cheap from elsewhere. It hurts the farmers here. I don't like it, but there's nothing we can do about it."
This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 5, 2002.