Nicho’s niche: fruits and vegetables

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Nicho’s niche: fruits and vegetables

“I love working here,” said Tommy Villarreal, president of Nicho Produce Company in Edinburg. “It’s a thrilling environment.” The wholesale company is a hive of activity, fronted by a war room of agents negotiating orders for shipments from over 500 suppliers from around the country and backed by warehouse employees loading and unloading boxes of produce, and kitchen workers moving a variety of vegetables and fruits through the fresh-cut process.

Nicho Produce is a family-oriented business. Along with Nicho and Tommy Villarreal, seen here in the patriarch’s office, the company also has also employed Tommy’s son Nicholas, whose image as a 3-year-old boy pulling a wagon emblazons the company logo. He is 16 now.
Nicho Produce is a family-oriented business. Along with Nicho and Tommy Villarreal, seen here in the patriarch’s office, the company also has also employed Tommy’s son Nicholas, whose image as a 3-year-old boy pulling a wagon emblazons the company logo. He is 16 now.

One of the oldest produce wholesalers in the Valley, Nicho  was founded by Villarreal’s father, Dionicio (nicknamed “Nicho”), in 1969 after he learned the produce-buying business while working for Sweeney and Company, a San Antonio grocer supplier. “We buy from everywhere, though there’s a lot of import warehouses in Hidalgo,” said the younger Villarreal. Buying mainly from grower-packers, who sell produce that arrives in Nicho’s warehouses pre-packaged, the company built up a robust business, prompting two major expansions of its facilities to incorporate industry advances and to accommodate their clients’ needs. In 1992, Nicho added rooms exclusively devoted to banana ripening. “When the bananas come into the ripening rooms, they are solid green and hard,” Villarreal said. “We pour ethylene into a container, which emits as a gas into the air, speeding up the natural ripening process. So instead of taking around 7 days, the bananas take around 3 days to be ready for sale.”

Workers in the Salad Room process fresh-cut vegetables.
Workers in the Salad Room process fresh-cut vegetables.

The other change occurred a few years ago when they began packaging some of their produce. New federal nutrition requirements, which mandate the provision of half-cup servings of vegetables to children, prompted adoption of the new service housed in the Salad Room. The chamber, cooled to a chilly 35 degrees, is equipped with a flume system, cutting machine, rinse water system, spinners, packing tables and a vacuum-sealing machine, which converts a select group of produce into single or smaller servings. Although they still provide five-pound bags and containers of sliced and diced produce, “what we’re seeing in the schools is a growing trend toward smaller packaging. Schools don’t have enough staff to prep food, so they want it pre-cut and ready to serve, meaning three-ounce packages of raw carrots and celery,” or two-ounce bags of sliced apples, another popular item Valley schools request. The same situation is occurring in restaurants, Villarreal said, so the technological investment has paid off.

To read more of this story, read the May 2015 edition of VBR under the “Current & Past Issues” tab on this website, or pick up a copy on news stands.

 

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