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American Morning
Interview with Matthew D'Arrigo, Hunt's Point Market
Aired June 06, 2002 - 07:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: It's almost summer, and produce stands are bursting with the colors of seasonal fruits and vegetables from all over the world. From deep blue Peruvian potatoes to Pakistan's soft yellow cauliflower, it all arrives in stores near you.
And CNN's Maria Hinojosa shows us how. She is standing by live at the world's largest food distribution market, Hunts Point in the Bronx. Where are you? Good morning.
(CROSSTALK)
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am wondering where I am. Well, you know what? What we are trying to do is kind of recreate the scene of what it's like. Let me tell you, Paula. I have almost gotten run over like 50 times by these guys. In New York City, you know, you are used to like cars. Here, it's all about these little hand trucks that run you over.
This, Paula, we are talking volume. We are talking 125 acres. We are talking enough food to feed 22 million people every day. It comes right in and out of the Hunt's Point Market.
Matthew D'Arrigo is the president of the Hunt's Point Market. He is going to tell us a little bit about what makes this particular season special. And you know, a lot of us think about fruit and vegetables, and we think about the fact that we are going to find them on our store shelves. But in fact, it's pretty complicated. What's new right now for this season?
MATTHEW D'ARRIGO, D'ARRIGO BROTHERS COMPANY: Right now, you have really the entire California fruit business starting, peaches, plums, nectarines, a lot of grapes, some cherries, the whole season. It's really the major volume season out of California, and really one of the busiest times of year here in New York for us.
HINOJOSA: Now, Matthew, you and I have been talking a lot. People really think about fruit as, you know, it's there and it's good usually. This is complicated stuff here.
D'ARRIGO: I have spent my whole life explaining it to my friends. It's a fast-moving business, because of the perishability aspects of fruits and vegetables. You really don't know what has happened to the product in its growing life, through the weather, from its transportation here, anything can happen. And you have all kinds of different conditions and qualities that show up every day.
HINOJOSA: Now, of course, Matthew only wanted to show us the good fruit. What's new this season here, we've got a lot of cherries that are new. And I -- poor little Matthew -- I pulled out these. These are bad cherries. I tasted them. He is not happy about the fact that I am showing them, but you know what? Ooh.
D'ARRIGO: Well, we always say that a farmer never has any ugly children, and sometimes they just don't make the grade. Now, those cherries there obviously sell for less money than the very good cherries in the box there.
HINOJOSA: And another thing that I was fascinated by is these apples. You think about these apples. They look gorgeous. But these apples were picked when?
D'ARRIGO: Probably in late September. They have tremendous storagability, apples. They can last in cold storages for months and months and months. Now, half of the apples we have right now on the shelves in the grocers are old crop, or what they call storage apples, and then you have many apples that are fresh crops from the south Hemisphere, like the Granny Smith's down here and other apples that we have on the sample.
HINOJOSA: So who...
D'ARRIGO: It's all very good, Maria.
HINOJOSA: But who would have thunk that these gorgeous apples, all right, these gorgeous apples were picked in October, and now New Yorkers and probably a lot of people across the country might get a chance to take a bite, which I will in a second -- back to you, Paula.
ZAHN: Well, that's fascinating. It made me hungry until I heard that some of those apples might have been sitting around there for nine months frankly, Maria. But I know that he said that they are not so perishable that they won't taste good after nine months.
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