NORTH KANSAS CITY, MO — C&C Produce Co., located here, is taking the “locally grown” produce category to new heights.

Nick Conforti, Sr., one of three C&C partners, hired Chris Shea, to lead C&C’s local product market development. “We have a lot of customers interested in the flavor profile” of locally-grown produce, Conforti said. “It is ripe and fresh. And, there is the support of the community, where it is important to the end consumer. But the most important of these is the flavor profile.”

OVERLAND PARK, KS — Filling gaps for regional wholesalers is the niche of Dennis Finucane, the owner of the produce brokerage F.G.F. Co., here.

Jim Gilson is an F.G.F. partner and works with Finucane on the sales desk.

“We put mixers together,” Finucane told The Produce News. “No order is too small, but we put together as decent of a load as we can. We’ll do a two- or three-pallet drop.”

Beyond this Kansas City area, Finucane serves wholesalers in Joplin and Springfield, MO, Pittsburg, KS, and Oklahoma City.

MANHATTAN, KS — In 1948, Britt’s Farm Market was established on a long stretch of Kansas Highway 18 connecting this college town, Manhattan, with nearby Ft. Riley, KS.

The fruit and vegetable operation has always been a well-known local landmark.

Over the years, the farm expanded to 400 acres of rich Kansas River bottomland, nestled between Kansas’ scenic Flint Hills.

As often happens when economic progress collides with agriculture, the farming side can literally be bulldozed.

In July, a feasibility study will be released on establishing a regional food hub in Kansas City.

The Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition website reports that last summer the Kansas City Food Hub Working Group received funding from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City and the Kansas Health Foundation to study local food hub feasibility. It is a year-long study.

Scott Danner, the COO of Liberty Fruit Co., Inc., in Kansas City, KS, said his firm is supportive of the effort.

A number of interesting developments are occurring in Kansas City’s food trade, according to David Haun, president of Haun Potato Co., located in suburban Shawnee Mission, KS.

In the restaurant business, “We continue to see increased chain restaurants in that sector. There are less and less Ma and Pa type restaurants.”

On the retail side, “We are seeing a definite increase in groceries going into the organic business.”

These may be strictly organic stores or mainstream stores that “are aware of the competition and carry more organics themselves.”

MANHATTAN, KS — The produce industry has a lot of good stories on how people got started in the business, but it’s hard to beat Terry (Edmonds) Olson’s tale from the mid-1960s.

Olson’s father was passionate for produce when he wasn’t teaching plant pathology at Kansas State University, located here. Dr. Leon Edmonds also had to feed a wife, Pat, and nine children. So converting the children to be profit centers was not only a practical matter but also good business training for the kids.