GrubMarket announced that it has completed the acquisition of South Texas-based London Fruit, an established, family-owned wholesale distribution business that has been operating since 1981. London Fruit is a market leader in avocados, limes, mangos, and other premium tropical fruits sourced from its extensive network of producers across Mexico, Peru, and other parts of South America. Located in Pharr, Texas, a city known for being a critical bridge between the U.S. and Mexico, London Fruit operates a modern facility that spans almost 50,000 square feet, including state-of-the-art refrigerated cold storage and a USDA organic-certified repacking space. In addition to import and distribution, London Fruit offers value-added services such as custom packing, grading, and private labeling.
Over the past 42 years, London Fruit has cultivated long-standing relationships with hundreds of retailers, supermarkets, and wholesalers throughout the U.S. and Canada, many of whom have now been loyal customers for decades. Co-owners Barry London and Jerry Garcia attribute much of their success to their dedication to excellent customer service and consistent delivery of high-quality products. They are committed to maintaining the highest food safety standards, with a near-perfect 99% Good Manufacturing Practices rating from PrimusGFS. In addition, London Fruit has enabled its cold rooms with Airocide PPT technology, an air sanitation technology developed by NASA that reduces 95% of airborne mold and over 99% of airborne bacteria, viruses, and volatile organic compounds like ethylene gas. To further enhance the safety and shelf-life of its products, in 2020, London Fruit was the first to offer Hazel 100 technology as a value-added service that delays fruit respiration while extending the shelf-life of products by several days. After the acquisition, the business will continue to be managed by its current experienced and mission-driven leadership team.
“When I started London Fruit over four decades ago, we were a small operation focused on just mangos and limes. Now, we can truly offer a taste of the tropics with a global operation focused on high-quality produce, superior packaging, and exceptional service. We are thrilled to join the GrubMarket team that shares our passion for utilizing technology and operational expertise to offer the freshest food to customers everywhere. We are also excited to access GrubMarket’s impressive grower network, and leverage its eCommerce and software ecosystem,” said Barry London, founder of London Fruit.
According to Mike Xu, CEO of GrubMarket, “I admire Barry and Jerry for the exceptional work they have done over the last 40+ years building London Fruit into a highly-regarded, cutting-edge fresh produce business with a sterling reputation amongst its many long-time customers. They have put considerable effort into maintaining top food safety ratings and utilizing modern technologies to provide the highest quality limes, avocados, and other specialty fresh produce. This acquisition enables GrubMarket to further strengthen our presence in Texas, while fortifying our global sourcing capabilities in Mexico and South America. We are excited to welcome the London Fruit team to the GrubMarket family.”
As a part of GrubMarket’s portfolio, London Fruit will now utilize GrubMarket’s innovative and proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company’s software-as-a-service platform that provides food industry wholesalers and distributors with seamless financial management, robust sales and online ordering features, precise inventory management, lot traceability, grower accounting, and automated routing and logistics, as well as Orders IO, GrubMarket‘s custom-branded, mobile eCommerce solution.
SOURCE: PRNewswire