Fancy this — an increasing number of exotic and unconventional raw and prepared items are finding a home in the supermarket produce case. Many of them were featured at the 2019 Summer Fancy Food Show.Allie Wainer and Gary Marcotte of Sid Wainer & Son showcase their ‘living wall' at the 2019 Summer Fancy Food Show.

Sid Wainer & Son, a New Bedford, MA-based produce and specialty foods company, was displaying its “living wall” of nasturtiums, red vein sorrel, pea greens, baby kale and lettuces grown in its New Bedford greenhouse. “We sell these to chefs where they can cut the product to order,” said Allie Wainer, executive vice president and chief customer officer. “While we are mostly a produce company, we also have a lot of specialty foods like herbs to showcase how you can add produce to a specialty store.”

She also spoke about the Wainer Family Farm, established 20 years ago in an inner city greenhouse built on a brownfield, allowing the firm to grow baby greens and micro vegetables that were historically brought in from California. “Now we can provide our chefs on the East Coast with fresh product coming out of a small greenhouse. Then we established the actual farm, a 50-acre farm in Dartmouth, MA, where we grow different interesting vegetables that typically might not have much demand or grow in New England,” Wainer said. “Once we find something that works we work with other local farmers to grow it in larger quantities for us. This way we are diversifying their crops without them having to take the risk.”

Melissa’s has been exhibiting at the Fancy Food Show for 20 years.

“Even though we are known for our fresh, here at the Fancy Food Show we showcase a lot of our dry category,” said Robert S. Schueller, director of public relations at Los Angeles-based Melissa’s/World Variety Produce Inc. “We have dried mushrooms, chilies, Latin ingredients, fruits, nuts and seeds and our Clean Snax. With Clean Snax, we are the only company that distributes granola through the produce department. A regular granola has about 30 ingredients, but our Clean Snax have fewer than 10, with most being seeds and dry fruits.”

One new item on display was a jar of shredded horseradish imported from Austria that is doing well around Jewish holidays, like Passover, Schueller noted.

Fresh items at the Melissa’s booth included dragonfruit, pink variegated lemons, and the five hottest chilies in existence, including The Reaper, billed as the hottest chili pepper in the Guinness Book of World Records. “We’re also sampling something that is not so common — the golden berry, which is a cousin to the tomatillo, that we import from Columbia, and personal softball-sized Charentias melons that we now have available year-round and that have an extremely high Brix count,” Schueller said.

Youssef Bishara, U.S. brands executive officer of Abuayyash Farms, based alongside the Dead Sea in Al-Karamah, Jordan, was making a case for why retailers should increase the space in the produce department devoted to dates. “Consumers need to be more educated about dates and their health benefits, and then they will be more prominent in grocery stores,” he said.  “Here in the United States, dates are not as visible and hidden in a container. In Jordan, they are not only packed in boxes, you’ll see baskets of them, like oranges or apples.”

Abuayyash Farms has been growing dates since 1929, and the third-generation farm has many varieties of dates, several of which are proprietary, including Kala dates, which feature a dark chocolate aftertaste. “We only produce about 60 tons a year and they are all being sold in the Jordan area, so we are working on growing the volume in order to bring them to the United States,” Bishara said.

Packaged primarily in glass jars and cans, heart of palm is another unusual produce item finding a home in the produce aisle.

“Historically, heart of palm is found in the canned vegetable section, but now it is moving to produce, and sales increase when it is in the produce section,” said Eduardo N. Becerra, managing director of Miami-based Inaexpo USA Ltd. Co., which imports heart of palm from Ecuador. “They are best merchandised on the top of the shelf since many people use heart of palm in salad, and this creates impulse sales,” he said, adding that Inaexpo has also developed a spaghetti-like version of hearts of palm.

Baskets of chestnuts are produce aisle staples around the holidays, but Cervinara, Italy-based M.G.M. SRL is looking to change that with resealable stand-up pouches of Marchese brand ready-to- eat Italian chestnuts. “They are pre-peeled and pre-cooked big caliber chestnuts with a two-year shelf life that are ideal for stuffing turkeys or snacking,” said Francesco Marchese, one of the principals of the family-owned firm. “Our slogan is ‘On Thanksgiving Day, don’t waste your time peeling chestnuts, enjoy your family.’ Marchese will take care of the chestnuts.” In addition to being used in stuffing or as a healthy snack, Marchese suggested consumers try them as a topping for vanilla ice cream.

Turkish apricots are a mainstay in the produce department dried fruit set, with Turkey exporting 13 tons of the dried fruit into the U.S. annually. While the majority of apricots are an orange apricot color, dark-hued, brownish ones are gaining steam. “The ones with the orange color are treated with sulfur dioxide, whereas the darker ones are sun-dried,” said Yigit Isiker, president of Safe Food Corp., based in Edgewater, NJ, who was a participant in the show’s Turkish Pavilion. “But I have to say, the dark ones taste much better. It looks dark, ugly and shriveled, but it is a very tasty fruit,” he said.

“Turkey is the largest source globally for dried figs and apricots,” Isiker said. “Over 70 percent of the world’s production of those two items comes out of Turkey. Produce is the best place these are sold. We see more success in the produce department.”  

This was the third year that Apex-Brasil, the Brazilian trade and investment promotion agency, has been involved with the Fancy Food Show. Items highlighted from the 34 participating Brazilian firms included tapioca flour from the yucca/cassava plant and the superfruit açai.  “Açai was wild, but now farmers are cultivating it,” said Fernando Spohr, operations manager of Miami-based Apex-Brasil.

Brazil is such a large country, that it is self-sufficient when it comes to raising produce, Spohr noted. “When I go to a supermarket in Brazil, the fruits and vegetables look a little bit different than they do here, and you can sense the smell because everything is so fresh,” he said.