North Bay Produce

June 29, 2008

The last couple of years have produced headlines of contaminated produce, from lettuce to spinach to most recently tomatoes. These scares have driven many consumers into seeking out their local farm markets as the primary source for their produce.
But local fresh produce is only available in season, so what must one do the rest of the year?
That is where Traverse City-based North Bay Produce comes in. This produce cooperative is made up of farmers all over the world who are committed to making sure that safe produce is available year-round.
North Bay evolved out of Cherry Central Cooperative in 1984 and was originally known as Wilderness Fresh Produce. Originally, the concept was to market fresh Michigan apples, asparagus and plums. In order to meet growing retail demand for year-round fresh produce, the company began importing product from Latin America in the late 1980s to expand its existing supply base. Due to the success of these programs, Wilderness and its Latin American partners formed North Bay Produce, Inc. in 1991.

NOW IN ASIA
“Our markets and products continue to expand. We have now opened up Asia,” said Nicholas Osmulski, sales manager. “Because Michigan and North America have a counter growing season to Latin and South American countries, we are able through this unique partnership to offer produce year-round to the public.”
Osmulski, who has been with North Bay for six years, sees this as an exciting time and feels North Bay has positioned itself well in the global market.
“We really don’t have a competitor as no one else offers the range of produce that we have,” said Osmulski. “Most of our competitors are product-specific. Few have more than one product.”
Having multiple products (apples, blueberries, peaches, figs, asparagus, snow peas, and sweet potatoes to name a few) has benefited North Bay, but so has its cooperative status.
“We are owned by the growers and the producers and are the only company like this in the world,” said Osmulski. “So our profits are distributed back to the stockholders. By being producer-owned we are in a better position to react quickly to changing market forces.”

TC HEADQUARTERS
North Bay has operations all over the world. Traverse City serves as its headquarters with the sales and marketing offices here. They have a warehouse operation in Miami for the produce shipped into the country. But product grown in the United States is shipped from various production facilities.
“For example, we are getting ready to ship Michigan blueberries all over and that will occur from five processing facilities here in Michigan,” said Osmulski. “It is the same with Michigan apples in the fall.”
So what about all of the produce scares? How is North Bay insuring safe produce, especially from foreign countries?
“Actually, the countries we work with have had stricter regulations than we have had in the U.S. A lot of that has to do with the fact that countries such as Chile and Argentina produce way more than they can consume. So they are shipping to world markets where third-party processing inspections are required,” said Osmulski. “So these facilities are very clean, with employees wearing lab coats, rubber boots and gloves and going through several sterilization stations before they work with the produce. We are finally catching up in the United States, but because often our production of some produce only supplies the demand here in the U.S., we have been lax in our inspections standards in some cases. But that has all changed now. We have third-party inspection companies.”

KNOW THE GROWER
Another advantage that North Bay has is they use the same philosophy many consumers are now using: “Know the grower.”
“We just don’t let anyone into the mix. We have stringent standards and requirements,” said Osmulski. “So we are about knowing the grower. Our stockholders are growers from all over the world, who get to know each other. They all subscribe to the same philosophy.”
So is North Bay using Michigan products?
“Oh yes. We use a lot,” said Osmulski. “We are getting ready to start shipping Michigan blueberries and will continue through September. We buy and ship a lot of apples from the Leelanau Peninsula as well as the Elk Rapids area.”
As for their clients, about 80% of their produce goes to major chains. The rest goes to produce markets and third party re-sellers.
“We supply Meijer and Spartan stores here in the Midwest,” said Osmulski. “We also supply Wal-mart and several other major retailers throughout the country.”
The company’s stockholders are located in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and the United States. In order to remain competitive in the global marketplace, their Traverse City sales office is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For additional information about North Bay Produce (they employ 15 people in Traverse City), visit northbayproduce.com.