Frutura moves to crop-specialist model to fuel next phase of growth

David, in the past you’ve been quite aggressive with acquisitions in your drive to build a produce company from scratch. How has that gone? 

David Krause: We were aggressive and I have the grey hairs to prove it. But we were also highly intentional. Our strategy was to have a meaningful presence in table grapes, berries and citrus. That was foundational. And then a footprint in avocados and mangoes that we could grow. 

For several years now you’ve been moving toward a corporate infrastructure organised by crop. Why? 

DK: From day one we’ve been focused on the goal of being in stock, 365 days a year, with the crops our customers most desire. So, our infrastructure simply mirrors the market and is in service of that goal. It was my intent to ultimately structure around crops for two reasons. Firstly, historically, a single produce buyer was responsible for multiple crop categories. But as once ‘exotic’ produce segments like avocados, mangoes and berries began to be bought in large volume globally, buying teams began to concentrate on single crops. Moving to align our infrastructure with buyer infrastructure simply reflects Frutura’s desire to make the customer experience frictionless. 

And for the same reason that produce buyers were specialising, we saw the benefit of having our crop-specific divisions and teammates focus more narrowly to maximise quality, innovation and the management of what’s become complex global operations around single crop categories.

Did you move into crop-specific categories all at once or one-by-one?

DK: We experienced the benefits of proceeding cautiously with acquisitions so we did the same with infrastructure pivots. Our first step was hiring respected avocado industry veteran Stephen Fink in 2022 to build a vertically integrated avocado operation. In 2025, Stephen helped drive the acquisition of Colombia-based Montana Fruits, an avocado grower/packager/shipper who importantly strengthened our Latin American pipeline.

Then we turned our attention to berries. Berries were a hole in our portfolio at founding and we were determined to change that. We were incredibly blessed to acquire two major berry names in 2023 – Sun Belle and Giddings Fruit Mexico. Giddings was later folded into the strong consumer Sun Belle brand and that operation is now called Sun Belle Mexico. 

We spent a year integrating our berry business and when that was complete in 2024, we formed a separate berry division under the able leadership of third-generation farmer JC Clinard. JC has since transitioned into an advisory role, stepping down from day-to-day operations, and I’m grateful for his contributions as we began to prioritise berries in a significant way. 

I understand you have two additional crop moves and three senior appointments you’re talking exclusively to us about. 

DK: That’s correct. We’ve been working on new divisions and we’ve added new positions. The moves we announce today are 100 per cent a function of having found the right people to run them. I’ve chosen to elevate the leadership of our crop divisions to president and CEO titles to reflect the impact we expect our crop-specific infrastructure to have on growth. 

I’m delighted to announce that Oscar Verges has come on board as CEO, berries. Oscar has had an impressive 25-year career in agriculture, beginning across disciplines and across geographies at Chiquita and, most recently, in the blueberry space. He also has deep expertise in global plant genetics and we welcome his innovation-oriented approach to our important berry business.

Stephen Fink has been promoted to president, table grapes and avocados. Stephen has more than proven himself by driving our emerging avocado business. This will continue to be a modest operation for us in the near term and Stephen plans to double our avocado volume in the coming five years. 

He has keen acumen beyond avocados, so I’ve decided to make grapes our next standalone division and to put him in charge. Grapes are a mature category for Frutura and we handle significant volume. We’ve been very aggressive in working to supply robust demand through our own farming operations and that of third party growers. Stephen intends to continue to add high-quality volume and to accelerate our consumer-focused varietals program.

We’re also announcing that citrus will be a new division under the leadership of Cory Oliver who’s joined Frutura as president, citrus and cherries. Cory has three decades of broad experience in produce and I knew him from our time together at Wonderful Citrus. Cory’s experience at Kroger, Albertsons, Sprouts and H-E-B will be an invaluable asset to our customer-centric culture. He plans to build on the depth of our citrus portfolio and its global diversity to provide our customers with the year round supply they require and deserve. 

Finally, Tim Dayka, a founder of Dayka & Hackett, will transition to an advisory role to these new leaders and to me. This will allow Tim to focus on his important governance role as a director of Frutura, and to bring his wisdom and broad knowledge of our industry to support these high potential crop specific verticals. 

So, what’s next for Frutura?

DK: You may remember when speaking with you in the past about acquisitions I have said our approach is slow-slow-quick. We take our time finding the right companies and integrating them with care. Then we move briskly to invest as appropriate and to help the management team drive growth. 

I’d say the same with the formation of these crop specific divisions. We carefully thought through optimal operational infrastructure and finding the right leadership. Next, we’ll support these leaders as they architect their businesses. 

When that’s complete, we’ll likely turn our attention to looking for opportunities to add volume within especially promising categories. We never stop looking for that sometimes-elusive next great deal, so we can be an ever more valuable partner to our customers.