GrubMarket expands in Texas with acquisition of London Fruit

GrubMarket announced that it has completed the acquisition of south Texas-based London Fruit, a family-owned wholesale distribution business handling avocados, mangos, limes and other premium tropical fruits sourced from its network of producers across Mexico, Peru, and other parts of South America.

In operation since 1981, London Fruit is based in Pharr, TX, a city known for being a critical bridge between the U.S. and Mexico. It operates a modern facility that spans almost 50,000 square feet, which includes state-of-the-art refrigerated cold storage and USDA organic-certified repacking space.

In addition to import and distribution, London Fruit offers ancillary services such as custom packing, grading and private label services for some of its biggest customers.

Over the past 42 years, London Fruit has cultivated long-standing relationships with the hundreds of retailers, supermarkets and wholesalers, many of whom have been loyal customers for decades.

“When I started London Fruit over four decades ago, we started as a small operation focused on just mangos and limes. Now, we can truly offer a taste of the tropics with a global operation focused on higher-quality produce, better packaging, and exceptional service,” said Barry London, owner of London Fruit. “We are thrilled to join the GrubMarket team, who shares our passion for utilizing technology and operational expertise to offer the freshest food to customers everywhere. We are also excited to access GrubMarket’s impressive grower network, leverage their eCommerce and software ecosystem and take advantage of the broader GrubMarket network.”

Co-owners Barry London and Jerry Garcia attribute much of this success to their dedication to customer service and consistently high-quality products. This is shown through their commitment to maintaining the highest food safety standards, having received a near-perfect 99 percent quality rating from PrimusGFS.

In addition, London Fruit also deploys Airocide PPT technology in its cold rooms -- a NASA-developed air sanitation technology reduces 95 percent of airborne mold and over 99 percent of airborne bacteria, viruses and volatile organic compounds like ethylene gas.

To further enhance the safety and shelf-life of its products, London Fruit has also adopted the USDA-backed Hazel 100 sachet technology that delays fruit respiration while extending the shelf-life of products by 40 percent.

After the acquisition, the business will continue to be managed by its current experienced and mission-driven leadership team.

“I admire Barry and Jerry for the exceptional work they have done over the last 40-plus years building London Fruit into a highly regarded, cutting-edge fresh produce business with a sterling reputation among its many long-time customers,” said Mike Xu, CEO of GrubMarket. “They have put considerable effort into achieving top food safety ratings and utilizing modern technologies to provide the highest quality limes, avocados and other specialty fresh produce. This acquisition enables GrubMarket to further strengthen our presence in Texas while fortifying our global sourcing capabilities in Mexico and South America. We are excited to welcome the London Fruit team to the GrubMarket family.”

As a part of GrubMarket’s portfolio, London Fruit will now utilize GrubMarket's innovative and proprietary WholesaleWare software suite, the company's software-as-a-service platform that provides food industry wholesalers and distributors with seamless financial management, robust sales, and online ordering features, precise inventory management, lot traceability, grower accounting, and automated routing and logistics, as well as Orders IO, GrubMarket's custom branded mobile eCommerce solution.