Interview: Diaz Produce, 17-Years and Growing

Hello! I am Alex Diaz and I have learned a lot over the past 10 years with responsibilities that range from Diaz Produce general manager to sales management roles with a more recent promotion to President of Diaz Produce.

Being responsible for our produce operation is something that brings me a lot of joy and with that joy comes a lot of new fun ways to learn about this business. Diaz Produce is actually fairly new, back in 2003 we decided that we would begin to serve our food service and produce retail customer base as well as retail. Specific requirements and delicate care for the produce encouraged an opening of an additional facility which 15 years later is part of Diaz Foods LLC operates as a cash and carry business in the state of Georgia which houses and distributes over 100 SKU’s of produce and over 1,000 in the category grocery to meet client demand each week.

Diaz Produce has been my morning destination now for over a year and a half. The first thing I do when I get to the building is to greet everyone in person and see how everyone is doing, while also making sure we don’t have any on going issues. Then I always walk the warehouse to make sure the coolers are at the correct temperature and that all else is well. I would say I spend about the same amount of time in the warehouse as I do in the sales office assisting with customers and helping close more complex sales. I feel that it is very important to create those one on one relationships with the customers and to make sure they feel like our number one priority. I typically spend my afternoons at a desk running reports and finalizing sales and all in all, I enjoy really my days at Diaz Produce and I hope to keep expanding and growing with the team I am very proud of.

A big advantage we have over our competitors is our gassing program. The Gassing program is a program that we offer to any of our customers free of additional charges. We have the ability to speed up the ripening process through a detailed process involving ethanol, temperature-controlled rooms and PSI gauges. We can bring in produce and ripen a badge of avocados to our customers liking.

Something I am very proud of is increasing our sales and profit over 20% in 5 months last year.

It was not easy by any means, but we were able to focus and work efficiently to hit our goals. We started the year on track to do about $5 mil in sales and from July-December 2019 we pushed and finished at just above $6 million in dollar sales for 2019. That provided a springboard of confidence and momentum that we have carried through to this year even with COVID.

Five years from now I see Diaz produce selling around $11-12 million per year housing more produce items and also adding the dimension of produce deliveries to our local GA clients. I also see us expanding our gassing programs to other distributors and large retailers to accommodate their produce needs. I would also assume that with the projected growth we are estimating that we would be in a larger facility in the farmers market. I would put us in a larger facility that we can literally grow into as we expand our product portfolio. Also, I think another gassing room so we can accommodate more clients and aid more customers with their ripening programs would be helpful.

Five years from now I see myself continuing to grow with this awesome company! Alex finished with immense pride. We thank Alex for his time, for sharing with us his achievements as well as future projects.

Congratulations!