nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 30, 2006

Craig Higashi displays a package of strawberries distributed by his company, Spokane Produce.

By Christina Twu
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

When Spokane Produce founder Shozo Higashi passed away in 2003, he left his son more than a $40 million-a-year business to operate and a legacy to uphold in the produce industry.

He left his son with timeless wisdom and some good old-fashioned business sense — and taught him family values that are nurtured within the company today, says Craig Higashi, the 46-year-old CEO of Spokane Produce, who started working in produce as a second-grader, cutting off the tops and bottoms of radishes.

“My father always said, ‘There’s only one thing you screw up on your own, and that’s your word,’” remembers Higashi.

For this reason, honesty, hard work and consistency in produce distribution have been the very cornerstones by which Spokane Produce has been able to succeed.

Before Higashi’s father passed on, he was leading the company’s efforts to package bagged salads and produce before the rest of the industry realized it would be a lucrative niche. Even when Shozo Higashi was stricken with lung cancer and could no longer work, he made sure he was still present somehow.

“Every evening at 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m., he would call (the office),” Higashi remembers. “When I picked up the phone, it wasn’t, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ It was, ‘So what was the action today?’”

Produce was his father’s life, says Higashi. This value was not lost on him.

Since the inception of Spokane Produce (originally Spokane Vegetable Growers Co-op) in 1945, the Higashis applied an unyielding work ethic, something that’s necessary for the merciless industry of perishable foods, where unforeseen variables in nature and production can directly affect business. Higashi calls the produce distribution industry “a true economics class with Mother Nature and her twist to it.”

Bad weather in California, for example, could ruin a major national crop at a time when that crop is in its highest demand, says Higashi.

Although Higashi and most in the produce industry have learned to roll with the punches, other challenges, including rising Labor and Industries insurance rates, fuel expenses and electricity costs, can add obstacles to an already-arduous industry.

Still, Spokane Produce has thrived under Shozo Higashi’s enduring motto: “We will market the best produce, from the best available suppliers, regardless of price, time or market conditions. People will always pay for quality. We will succeed if we always stay true to this principle.”

Some of the company’s biggest and most loyal produce purveyors are government agencies, Harvest Foods, a network of independently owned grocery stores in the Northwest and Rosauer’s Supermarkets, a retail grocery chain in Eastern Washington.

Spokane Produce sources and transports all the fruits and vegetables found in typical grocery stores, with distribution areas ranging from Washington to British Columbia to Oregon, Montana and Wyoming. The company’s processing department is also responsible for preparing, packaging and marketing cut vegetables, bagged salad mixes and deli foods for retail sales at area supermarkets, a service that was considered an industry lead in the 1990s.
“What I’ve been trying to do is keep the reputation that (my father) built,” says Higashi. “And now I’m building on that, expanding the business, watching it grow.”

Since the 1940s, Spokane Produce has grown from a handful of workers to about 220 employees today, standing as one of Washington state’s largest minority-owned businesses and one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest produce supply companies.

In 2005, Spokane Produce received the William D. Bradford Minority Business of the Year award from the University of Washington Business School. Higashi’s company is now waiting to hear if it has won the 2006 Asian American Entrepreneur of the Year, an award that will be handed out Oct. 14 by the Northwest Asian Weekly Foundation.

Higashi said he takes pride in the sense of family fostered at the company.
“You have people that are more willing to put their heart into it,” he explains. “They’re more dedicated because it’s their family; it’s just much more of a higher level of commitment.”

His brother-in-law Brett Lauderdale acts as Spokane Produce’s sales manager, and Brett’s brother Barry Lauderdale is the company’s operations manager. Higashi’s wife, Ramona Higashi, serves as the office manager and their four children are known to help out every once in a while in warehouse processing and growing operations, says Higashi.

To aspiring Asian American entrepreneurs today, Higashi’s advises: “Work hard and analyze the situation before you dive into it. … Always be willing to work hard. There are no free lunches in this world. … And don’t make commitments that you can’t fulfill.”

For more information, visit www.spokaneproduce.com.

Christina Twu can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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