New York’s Biggest Produce Market Is at a Breaking Point

On a recent evening in New York, Pedro Saavedra is hunting tomatoes. He turns on his iPhone flashlight and steps into the back of a dark, climate-controlled trailer, where hundreds of boxes are stacked to the top. He slides through a small gap between the crates and plays his light over the goods, opening a few boxes to check out the merchandise. He was lured here by the promise of a good deal. Each 25-pound box of tomatoes has been marked down from $35 to $24. Now he knows why. Even with the dim phone light, he can see a yellow tint, indicating they’re not fully ripe. It’s not a dealbreaker. “Never going to be perfect,” he says with a shrug. He steps back out of the trailer into a warehouse full of fruit and vegetables. Across the way, a salesman is sitting at a booth, waiting for offers. Saavedra buys 80 boxes.

His boss won’t be able to sell these tomatoes tomorrow, but to put them on his list of sales items for the week, he’ll need lots, including some that still have ripening to do. These are big and firm enough to sell in a few days—and now that Saavedra has found slightly less-than-ideal tomatoes for this price, $24 can serve as a floor for his haggling with nearby vendors whose inventory is ready to eat. Within 10 minutes, he’s arguing a different seller down to $24. By 1 a.m., roughly 1,500 boxes of tomatoes, cauliflower, grapes, peppers and other produce sit in his store’s 18-wheeler. While the truck trundles off on the 90-minute trip back to his employer in South Brooklyn, a 24/7 greengrocer called Three Guys From Brooklyn, Saavedra heads to bed. He carries out this routine five nights a week.