Courtesy M. Levin and Co.
Tracie Levin, controller at M. Levin and Co. on the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, may have worked at the company for 15 years, but she's still considered a “newbie,” she said.
She's the fourth generation at the 115-year-old, family-owned company, working alongside her father, Mark Levin, and three cousins.
M. Levin and Co. is the oldest merchant on the market, she said.
“We've been around quite some time.”
Although the company is a full-line distributor and occupies six units there, three of those units are dedicated to bananas.
“We are a ripener-distributor for regular bananas, as well as foodservice bananas,” she said. “We move about 35,000 cases a week.”
M. Levin also offers a wide range of tropical items, including mangoes, dragon fruit and passion fruit.
“Philadelphia is very diverse, and it's becoming more diverse, so our tropical line is actually exploding,” she said. “Every year, we add more and more to it.”
In fact, tropicals now rival bananas in terms of sales at the company, she said.
The firm's customers are “anyone who buys produce, from big box stores to the corner bodegas here in Philadelphia,” she said. “Anyone willing to buy in bulk.”
Even some neighborhood co-ops do business with M. Levin, she said.
During the current freight dilemma, where it's difficult and expensive to secure delivery trucks, the company is looking to expand its delivery capabilities once again by adding to its transportation fleet.
That is, “if we can ever get equipment,” Levin said. “Everything is in short supply, so that's kind of been a hurdle.”
Levin's great-grandfather, Michael Levin, started the company in 1906 selling only bananas.
Today, Levin's two daughters are featured in banana ads.
“Maybe we'll have two more girls coming for the fifth generation, but we've got quite some time to go,” she said. “The oldest one is only 3 years old.”