Expanding Your Specialty Selection in the New Year
When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, people around the world celebrate with fireworks, kisses, cocktails, and list their New Year’s Resolutions. One of the top resolution’s year-to-year is to live a healthier, more functional life through diet and exercise. The key part of accomplishing this goal through diet: eating more fresh fruit and vegetables. But here’s the thing – we live in a world of overload. People are constantly consuming, and those plain jane baby carrots constantly sitting in the display case aren’t grabbing anyone’s attention. It’s not new, not exciting, and it’s not cutting through the noise to drive sales.
That’s where the category of the produce industry known as ‘specialty’ can help. Specialty produce encompasses niche, unique, and hard-to-find varieties. Some specialties that have become more popular in recent years include varieties like dragon fruit, lychee, and starfruit. These specialties are capturing the attention of audiences for not only their health enhancing qualities, but for being new and exciting as well.
Specialty produce allows you to take the staple line of commodities and elevate it on your shelf. Think of an apple: it has green skin, but when cut open it has vibrant pink-red flesh. That’s not just any old granny smith apple; it’s a Hidden Rose® Apple. These apples are grown domestically in the US (bonus!). Another example is a cara cara orange. This variety can be easily cross merchandised alongside a typical navel orange, just be sure to include good signage of which variety is which. Cara caras are very similar to navels in looks and flavor but lack acidity. It’s an acid-reflux friendly orange and expands the possible pool of consumers who may make a purchase, driving additional value into the standard orange product line.
Certain specialties are highly seasonal and are available in limited windows throughout the year. However, when we look internationally, we may find what’s a specialty here in the US is more common in other parts of the world. Take pomegranates: they’re seasonal when it comes to domestic production. The season for California supply starts late summer and extends until about November. Well, what about all the other months? What if you wanted pomegranates during the winter months? Thankfully, there are importers who are knowledgeable in specialty produce. This allows the US market to have counter-season supplies of pomegranates from December to August. And just like that, we’re looking at 365 days of pomegranates.
Specialty may seem like a daunting category to dive into, but there are suppliers who go beyond varieties to add value to specialty. Rather have a retail-friendly pack of lychee instead of a bulk volume fill pack? Specialty produce suppliers know how to work with the variety to prevent increasing the rate of decay. This includes handling, storage, repacking, transporting, ripening, and more.
The most important factor when considering specialty produce: food safety. Well, really any produce supplier in general. Food safety is nothing to overlook, it’s a crucial part in making sure food is safe to consume as it moves throughout the supply chain. When working with any part of the produce supply chain, whether specialty or otherwise, make sure food safety standards are being met and certifications are up to date.
Become a Partner in Quality
Established in 1919, John Vena Inc. (JVI) is a fourth-generation family-owned and-operated produce importer, wholesaler, and distributor providing a full suite of supply chain services including repacking, ripening, and logistics.
