With distribution facilities located throughout the United States and multiple offshore sourcing regions, HLB Specialties is able to provide its customers with reliable supplies of tropical produce items throughout the year.
Lorenz Hartmann de Barros, director of sales for the Pompano Beach, FL-based importer-distributor of tropical and speciality produce, said that while papayas are the firm’s signature item, it has branched out in recent years with increased volumes of mangos, limes and avocados, as well as a small but robust rambutan program.
“We bring in the large papaya variety, the Formosa, from both Guatemala and Mexico,” said Mr. Hartmann de Barros. “We work with four growers, which gives us plenty of supply to keep our customers fully stocked.”
I met Homero Levy de Barros on a lava-scorched plantation on Hawaii’s Big Island, where we gazed at rows of scrawny trees, green papayas clustered at the top like pendulous breasts shaded by a parasol of splayed palm leaves.