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With growing demand for organic produce in the United States, Texas-based Pasco Foods is stepping up to fill the niche market.
The company, which began packing private label French-Fried onions and Crispy-Fried Onions for U.S. retailers, wholesale clubs and industrial customers in 1999, has since expanded to supply pineapple and hearts of palm imports from Costa Rica to U.S. consumers, according to the company’s website.
In an interview with FreshPlaza, JP Kloninger with Pasco Foods, said “Organic pineapples from Costa Rica are our primary focus right now.”
Seeing an undersupplied market for organic pineapples, not only in the U.S. but also globally, last year Pasco Foods, Inc. began its fresh organic pineapple program, grown in Costa Rica under the CostaVerde brand, said FreshPlaza.
“From our end what we have been doing is beating our drum a bit more in the northeaster United States. We’re about to start moving product to the Northeast with some frequency, and in the South/Southwest not too long from now. We’re looking for those who value and understand organics and ideally have something of a track record in this space. Our customers on the west coast have been in the organic game for many years, and they just didn’t have a consistent year-round provider of organic pineapples, so it was a nice match and we’re happy we can build a solid, long-term program with our partners,” said Kloninger.
“We also offer conventional product but our primary focus, especially long term, is the organic segment,” he added.
Pasco said their vertically integration with the largest privately owned organic pineapple grower in Costa Rica is also beneficial from the grower’s perspective, and from an overall environmental, social and business standpoint.
Reflecting on the damages northern Costa Rica suffered from Hurricane Otto last Thanksgiving, Kloninger said those effects were felt well into the first quarter of 2017.
“We felt a ripple effect in pineapple supply and the overall business several weeks after the hurricane, but fortunately we are past that now,” said Kloninger. “While we were still able to provide consistent, high-quality supply since January, for a while we did have to cull a bit more than what we consider typical.”
Pasco said they are also exploring developing a crownless pineapple program, for both organic and conventional CostaVerde brand fruits: “Sometimes during a second harvest for example, pineapples can grow crooked crowns, but that fruit is still excellent for the fresh-cut, frozen or juicing markets,” explained Kloninger.
