In Winston-Salem, N.C., produce wholesalers adjust to changing industry.

Publication: Winston-Salem Journal (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Winston-Salem Journal

Byline: Jeanne Sturiale

Nov. 22--Will Doss, 33, is glad he's not back in the old days, "sleeping with the produce."

Doss, a fourth-generation manager at W.R. Vernon Produce Co. in Winston-Salem, used that expression recently to describe the punishing hours put in by family members of past generations that distributed fresh fruits and vegetables.

"They'd work all day and into the night, get a couple of hours of sleep, and open back up," Doss said.

Today, schedules aren't quite as harsh. But, the small hours of the morning are still when Winston-Salem's wholesale-produce machine comes alive, in and around the warehouses of a handful of ages-old businesses.

Most of those companies are huddled around North Cherry and Trade streets, at Seventh Street. It's an area that, in the 1940s, became a bustling center of produce commerce, fed by the city's industrial growth.

From Vernon Produce, the "granddaddy," to the smallest, Triad Produce Inc., the companies form an unusual network of competitors and colleagues, one where family roots run deep.

Their common cause is moving a designated tonnage of fresh produce -- whether it's cantaloupes from Yadkinville or purple peppers from Belgium -- from field to packing house, distribution center to retailer.

The produce wholesalers are categorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as "specialty" wholesalers in the nation's $589-billion business of food wholesaling. "Full-line" wholesalers, such as E.G. Forrest Co. in Winston-Salem, deal in a broader range of food-related products.

The customers of the...

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