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FRESH Star Fruit (Carambola) Importers
While there is insufficient publicly available information to provide a list of five West Coast import companies which specifically import Taiwanese star fruit (Carambola), we've used the available data to pull together key findings: There appear to be only two import companies in the specified region, both in California, which ship this specific fruit, Coosemans Los Angeles and Vision Produce Company. Below you'll find an outline of our research methodology to better understand why a complete list of at least five companies is unavailable, as well as a deep dive into our findings.
METHODOLOGY
After reviewing our previous report, we focused our efforts on finding produce importers located in California, Oregon, or Washington state rather than exporters delivering to those states. Our initial broad-based internet search provided only one solid lead, Coosemans, but also resulted in many false positives in the form of food distributors instead of import companies.
Following this, we conducted a Yellow Pages search for food importers in the relevant states, then examined the product line of each to determine if they imported star fruit specifically from Taiwan. This yielded a second result in the Vision Produce Company (formerly Tavilla Sales Company) and several distributors that we set aside as against the specific criteria of this request. This left us three companies short of the requisite number of companies.
Finally, we researched websites and/or organizations which track international trade, hoping that these might provide listings of import companies which ship a given product. Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case: The few that we found were either unhelpful or else require a paid subscription for the level of access needed to complete our research. We judge it likely that even if we had access, it would not produce additional results, as there is no reason for an import company to hide its presence from potential clients.
Having exhausted all avenues of research, we conclude that there are only two true import companies on the West Coast which specifically deal in Taiwanese star fruit (Carambola) in addition to two distributors which, based on their descriptions, may also double as import companies.
COOSEMANS LOS ANGELES
1601 E. Olympic Blvd. #218
Los Angeles, CA 90021
Tel: 213-689-1551
Fax: 213-689-1583
VISION PRODUCE COMPANY
Formerly Tavilla Sales Company (and still listed as such on several other sites)
1651 E. Bay Street
Los Angeles, CA 90021-1635
InfoLA@visionproduceco.com
Telephone:(213) 622-4435
Fax Sales:(213) 622-0004
CONCLUSION
It is unusual to be unable to find at least five companies in a particular sector (produce imports, in this case) in an area the size of the West Coast. Given the number of export companies located in our previous report, we hypothesize that star fruit is simply not a popular import in the US and that most of the trade specifically with Taiwan is handled by their export companies. However, the precise details of the star fruit trade did not emerge in the course of our research and we did not pursue that line of inquiry separately. If it would serve the underlying need behind this request, Wonder can pursue the question as a separate project, though we suspect that we will find only the high-level details in the public domain. Alternatively, a paid subscription to either Tridge or Best Food Importers could conceivably provide additional results.