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Produce distributors in Chicago

Chicago lost its stockyards and it lost its fish market, but the produce trade got something the others did not: a purpose-built market it moved into rather than a redevelopment it was cleared for. Ten of the suppliers below trade inside it. Nothing here was written from anything but the companies' own pages.

  • 18 suppliers, verified in September 2026 against company websites and the market's own merchant directory.
  • Four of them publish no website at all. Those listings carry only what the market records, and say so on the card.
  • Two of the companies here have the same owner. That is stated plainly rather than left for you to work out.
18
Suppliers listed
Each verified against its own website
17
Independent houses
Local specialists and regional distributors
1
Walk-in options
Cash and carry, so no delivery minimum
1924
Oldest still trading
T. Castro Produce

Every produce distributor we verified in Chicago

Filter by what they carry, how the business is set up, who they sell to, how you can buy, and where they are. 18 of 18 publish a phone number and 14 publish a street address; where a company does not, the field is left out rather than filled in.

Filter

Supplier type

How the business is set up

Product
Who they serve
How you buy
Area

Showing 18 of 18 suppliers.

Ellengee Market

Cash and carryJefferson Park

Seventy years of supplying restaurants and businesses across Chicagoland, run as a wholesale desk and a cash-and-carry at the same address. There is no membership fee, pricing moves with the weekly market, and orders can be placed in store, by phone or through an online store.

  • Cash-and-carry with no membership fee
  • Wholesale desk on (773) 777-7400, cash-and-carry on (773) 777-9000
  • Order in store, by phone, or online

Serves: Restaurants, Businesses, Walk-in trade

Address
5120 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL, 60630
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit ellengeemarket.com

Martinez Produce & Seafood

Regional distributorEst. 2005

Established in 2005 and describing itself as a leader in sushi-grade seafood and fresh produce, wholesaling across the Midwest and the northeast United States. Salmon is sourced from Scotland, Norway, Canada and the Faroe Islands, which lets the company offer several versions of the same species at different price points.

  • Sushi-grade programme with salmon from four sourcing regions
  • Carries produce alongside seafood on the same order
  • Runs its own MTZ Marine brand

Named programmes

MTZ MarineKikkomanMizkanTetsujinBakkafrostHallvard Leroy

Serves: Restaurants, Sushi restaurants, Retailers

Address
Chicago, IL
Delivers
Midwest and northeast United States
Visit mpseafood.com

J.L. Gonzalez Produce

Local specialistChicago International Produce MarketEst. 1993

Opened in 1993 and now, by its own account, operating the largest facility in the Chicago International Produce Market. The site runs commercial refrigeration, freezers and ripening rooms, which is what lets a wholesaler hold fruit to a delivery date instead of selling it the day it lands.

  • Largest facility in the produce market, by its own account
  • Refrigeration, freezers and ripening rooms on site
  • Trading at the market since 1993

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 1-7, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit jlgonzalezproduce.com

Panama Banana

Regional distributorChicago International Produce Market

A distributor of fine produce at the market which says it has spent nearly a century building its reputation in Chicago. The facility runs ripening rooms, cold coolers and climate-controlled docks, and the receiving team inspects every load before it is sorted and stored. Panama was acquired by FreshEdge, which is backed by Wind Point Partners.

  • Nearly a century in Chicago produce, by its own account
  • Ripening rooms, cold coolers and climate-controlled docks
  • Owned by FreshEdge, alongside Testa Produce

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 32-36, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland and the Midwest
Visit panamabanana.com

Testa Produce

Regional distributorBack of the Yards

Describes itself as the premier wholesale distributor to hotels, restaurants, hospitals and corporate dining across Chicagoland. It runs local, seasonal, specialty and organic programmes alongside domestic and imported lines, and carries dry and frozen goods, beverages, value-added and grab-and-go items. Testa was acquired by FreshEdge in May 2023.

  • Local, seasonal, specialty and organic produce programmes
  • Dry goods, frozen, beverages and grab-and-go on the same order
  • Owned by FreshEdge since May 2023, alongside Panama Banana

Serves: Hotels, Restaurants, Hospitals, Corporate dining

Address
4555 S Racine Ave, Chicago, IL, 60609
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit testaproduce.com

T. Castro Produce

Regional distributorEst. 1924

Started in 1924 when Tom Castro Sr. ran a single box truck delivering fruit and vegetables to restaurants and grocers in Melrose Park. A hundred years and five generations later it runs a new warehouse and a temperature-controlled fleet, serving Illinois and northwest Indiana with produce, dairy, meat and poultry, dry goods and paper.

  • Five generations, trading since 1924
  • Temperature-controlled fleet across Illinois and northwest Indiana
  • Carries dairy, dry goods and paper alongside produce

Serves: Restaurants, Grocers, Foodservice operators

Address
Chicago, IL
Delivers
Illinois and northwest Indiana
Visit tcastroproduce.com

Market Produce

Local specialistNear West Side

A family owned and operated house of 25 years supplying chefs and restaurants across Chicagoland. It buys through established shippers and brokers rather than holding its own farms, and takes orders online around the clock as well as by voicemail and fax, which is a wider set of options than most of the trade offers.

  • Family owned and operated, 25 years supplying chefs
  • Online ordering available 24/7
  • Also takes orders by voicemail and fax

Serves: Chefs, Restaurants

Address
2530 W. Madison St, Chicago, IL, 60612
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit marketproducechicago.com

Chicago's Premier Produce

Local specialist

A direct receiver of fresh fruit and vegetables serving foodservice operations of any size, with specialty items available on advance notice. It is the direct distributor of Herbal Garden brand herbs, which it says are flown in daily, and its desk is staffed from 2:00am to 4:30pm.

  • Direct receiver rather than a reseller
  • Herbal Garden herbs flown in daily
  • Order desk staffed from 2:00am, which suits early prep

Named programmes

Herbal Garden

Serves: Foodservice establishments of all sizes

Address
Chicago, IL
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit chicagospremierproduce.com

Get Fresh Produce

Regional distributorBartlett

A foodservice produce distributor operating from Bartlett, out past the western suburbs, with an order desk reachable by email. Being outside the city gives it the yard and cold storage that a market unit cannot hold, at the cost of distance from the downtown kitchens.

  • Foodservice specialist rather than a broadline
  • Orders taken by email to a dedicated address
  • Warehouse space out past the western suburbs

Serves: Foodservice operators, Restaurants

Address
1441 Brewster Creek Blvd, Bartlett, IL, 60103
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit getfreshproduce.com

Martin Produce

Regional distributor

A wholesale foodservice distributor covering the Midwest from Illinois, carrying restaurant supplies alongside produce. It runs separate sales and purchasing addresses, and positions itself on competitive pricing plus advice on restaurant practice rather than on range alone.

  • Produce and restaurant supplies from one distributor
  • Delivers from Illinois into surrounding Midwest states
  • Separate sales and purchasing contacts

Serves: Restaurants, Foodservice operators

Address
Chicago, IL
Delivers
Illinois and the surrounding Midwest
Visit martinproduce.net

Galera Fresh

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

Trades at the produce market as Galera Fresh, delivering to supermarkets, grocers and restaurants every day from its warehouse there. It holds one of the larger unit runs on the market, units 26 to 30.

  • Daily delivery to supermarkets, grocers and restaurants
  • One of the larger unit runs on the market
  • Order desk at office@galerafresh.com

Serves: Supermarkets, Grocers, Restaurants

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 26-30, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland and the Midwest
Visit lagaleraproduce.com

JAB Produce

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

A wholesaler and distributor of fresh produce trading from units 22 and 23 of the Chicago International Produce Market. Two order lines are published, which for a market house usually means a sales desk separate from the buying desk.

  • Wholesaler and distributor on the produce market floor
  • Two published order lines
  • Units 22 to 23

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 22-23, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit jabproducecompany.com

Every Day Fresh Produce

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

The one merchant on the market floor that names its specialism outright: Asian, Indian and Hispanic produce. For a kitchen buying outside the standard commodity list, that is the difference between a special order and a line that is simply carried.

  • Specialises in Asian, Indian and Hispanic produce
  • On the market floor, unit 14
  • Useful where a broadline would need a special order

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 14, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit edfproduce.com

Coosemans Chicago

Regional distributorChicago International Produce Market

The Chicago branch of Coosemans Worldwide, trading from unit 13 of the produce market. The company's own website returned a cookie notice rather than content when we captured it, so this listing carries only the name, the unit and the phone number the market directory publishes.

  • Part of the Coosemans Worldwide group
  • On the market floor, unit 13
  • Site did not render on capture, so details are limited on purpose

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 13, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland
Visit coosemansww.com

Strube Celery & Vegetable Company

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

One of the larger unit runs on the market floor, units 16 to 20. The company's own website would not render for us, so everything here comes from the market's merchant directory rather than from the company, and we have not written a description of its range on its behalf.

  • Units 16 to 20 on the market floor
  • Listed in the market's own merchant directory
  • Details limited to what the market publishes

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 16-20, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland

Jack Tuchten Produce

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

A merchant on the produce market floor at unit 31. The company publishes no website, so this listing carries only what the market's own merchant directory records, and nothing has been added from third-party sources.

  • Unit 31 on the market floor
  • No company website published
  • Details limited to the market's merchant directory

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 31, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland

D&K (Dietz & Kolodenko)

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

A merchant on the produce market floor at units 24 and 25. The company publishes no website, so this listing carries only what the market's own merchant directory records.

  • Units 24 to 25 on the market floor
  • No company website published
  • Details limited to the market's merchant directory

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 24-25, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland

Atom Banana

Local specialistChicago International Produce Market

A merchant on the produce market floor across units 8 to 12. The company publishes no website, so this listing carries only what the market's own merchant directory records. The name points at bananas, but we have not verified a product range and have not invented one.

  • Units 8 to 12 on the market floor
  • No company website published
  • Details limited to the market's merchant directory

Serves: Retailers, Foodservice operators, Distributors

Address
2404 S Wolcott Ave, Unit 8-12, Chicago, IL, 60608
Delivers
Chicagoland

The market Chicago moved instead of demolishing

The produce trade started on South Water Street, the wholesale row along the river. It moved once, into terra cotta-clad buildings on 15th Street between Racine and Morgan, and traded there as the South Water Market from 1925 to 2001. Block Club Chicago calls it the city's largest produce market. Those buildings are still standing. They are the University Commons condominiums now, and in 2025 the complex marked its centenary by recreating the market for a single day, with companies that had once traded there coming back to the site.

Then in 2003 the trade moved again, southwest to 2404 South Wolcott Avenue, and took a new name: the Chicago International Produce Market. That is the crucial difference from the other two food trades in this city. The stockyards closed and the meat houses scattered. Fulton Market's fish wholesalers were bought out and demolished. The produce trade was relocated into a facility built for it, and it is still there, open every day of the year.

So the geography of buying produce in Chicago is unusually simple. Ten of the eighteen companies below share one address and differ only by unit number, which means you can compare them in an afternoon without leaving a car park. The rest sit outside the market, closer to the customers or further out where the warehouse space is.

  • 2404 S Wolcott Avenue. The Chicago International Produce Market, off Damen and the Stevenson. Ten of the suppliers here trade from it, in units numbered 1 to 36.
  • The old South Water Market. 15th Street from Racine to Morgan. Traded 1925 to 2001, now the University Commons condos, with the terra cotta buildings still in place.
  • Back of the Yards. Testa Produce runs from South Racine Avenue, in the same district that once held the stockyards and still holds several of the meat houses.
  • Out past the suburbs. Bartlett and the western edge, where a distributor can hold the yard and cold storage that a market unit cannot.

The kinds of supplier on this page

Produce sorts differently again from meat and seafood. The main division is not size, it is whether a company trades on the market floor or runs its own warehouse elsewhere, because that changes when you can collect, how early you can order and who carries the risk on a load that does not sell.

Supplier typeCatalogueCuttingMinimumDeliveryBest for
Local specialist10 hereNarrow, protein onlyCuts to your specificationUsually negotiableScheduled, local routesMenus where the cut is the dish
Regional distributor7 hereBroader, may run past proteinSome, varies by houseSet per accountMulti-state or multi-marketGroups wanting fewer accounts
Cash and carry1 hereWhatever is in the caseCut to order at the counterNone, you collectNoneSmall volume and mid-week gaps

The count column is computed from the listings above. The rest describes how each business model typically works, not a term any individual company has published. Minimums and delivery days are always set per account, so treat this as a shortlist tool, not a quote.

Buying at the market itself

The market publishes terms that individual distributors almost never do, and they are worth knowing before you call anyone. It is open seven days a week, 365 days a year. It is free to shop there, with no membership fee of the kind a cash and carry charges, and there is free parking at the north and south ends. The merchants, in the market's own words, serve retailers, distributors, foodservice, government agencies and even church and school organisations, and can satisfy all size orders.

That last phrase is the useful one. The most common reason a small kitchen cannot buy well is a delivery minimum, and a market floor is the standard answer to it: you go, you buy what you need, you carry it out. The one published cost to watch is on the other side of the operation, a 40 dollar gate fee charged to over the road trucks dropping loads, and those trucks must enter at Wolcott rather than Damen.

What the market cannot fix is that individual merchants keep their own hours and holiday closures. The directory lists them per merchant, so check the one you want rather than assuming the market's own 365 days applies to every unit inside it.

The shape of Chicago's supplier base

Counted from the 18 listings above. Change the view, then narrow by supplier type to see how the mix shifts.

Produce18
Fruit15
Vegetables15
Dry goods3
Disposables2
Specialty2
Beef1
Cheese1
Dairy1
Frozen1
Herbs1
Organic1
Pork1
Poultry1
Seafood1
Shellfish1
Sushi grade1

18 suppliers in view. Bars count suppliers carrying each product line, so they add up to more than 18: most suppliers carry several.

1

Go once before you open an account

Ten of these companies are within a few hundred feet of each other. An hour walking the floor tells you more about quality and price than a week of phone calls.

2

Ask about hours, not just the market's

The market runs 365 days a year. The merchant you want may not. Their individual hours are in the market's directory.

3

Use the specialists for what a broadline will not carry

One merchant here names Asian, Indian and Hispanic produce as its specialism. That is a line, not a special order, which is a different conversation entirely.

4

Remember the market is a floor, not a supplier

You are buying from an individual merchant with its own terms, not from the market. The shared address does not mean shared pricing or shared delivery.

Delivery, minimums and ordering hours

As on the other pages, almost nobody publishes a minimum drop, because terms are set per account. What produce does publish, more than meat or seafood, is ordering hours, and they tell you something real about the trade.

Chicago's Premier Produce staffs its desk from 2:00am to 4:30pm, which is a produce schedule rather than an office one, and it suits a kitchen that wants to order after close or before prep. Market Produce takes orders online around the clock, plus voicemail and fax, which is a wider set of channels than most of this trade offers. Get Fresh Produce publishes an order email. Martin Produce runs separate sales and purchasing addresses. Testa covers hotels, hospitals and corporate dining as well as restaurants, so it is built for scheduled institutional volume rather than daily improvisation.

The questions that decide whether an account works are the same four as ever: what is the minimum drop, which days do you reach my zip code, what is the cut-off for next day, and what happens when you short me. With produce, add a fifth, because it is perishable and graded: what happens when a case arrives and it is not the quality that was ordered.

SupplierProduceFruitVegetablesDry goodsDisposablesSpecialtyDeliversWalk-in counterSame-day availableShips nationally
Ellengee Market
Martinez Produce & Seafood
J.L. Gonzalez Produce
Panama Banana
Testa Produce
T. Castro Produce
Market Produce
Chicago's Premier Produce
Get Fresh Produce
Martin Produce
Galera Fresh
JAB Produce
Every Day Fresh Produce
Coosemans Chicago
Strube Celery & Vegetable Company
Jack Tuchten Produce
D&K (Dietz & Kolodenko)
Atom Banana

A blank cell means the company does not list that line on its own site, not that it cannot get it. Most of these houses will source outside their published range for an account they want. Columns showing only one supplier are hidden to keep the grid readable.

Two of these companies have the same owner

Testa Produce and Panama Banana both appear on this page as separate businesses, because that is how they trade. They are both owned by FreshEdge, which describes itself as a family of fresh food distribution companies and is backed by Wind Point Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm. FreshEdge acquired Testa in May 2023 and later acquired Panama, a merchant on the market floor. Panama's own site carries the announcement.

The scale is worth seeing. At the time of that announcement FreshEdge reported operating 979,800 square feet of warehouse across 27 facilities, with more than 947 trucks and more than 2,000 employees. That is not a local produce house. It is a national platform that has bought two of Chicago's.

This matters in a way it did not on the meat page. If you are keeping a second supplier specifically so your pricing stays honest, and both of your suppliers are owned by the same company, you do not have a second supplier. You have one relationship and two invoices. That is not an argument against either business, both of which are serious operations with real facilities. It is an argument for knowing the ownership before you build your buying strategy around a comparison.

  • Check ownership before you pick your second supplier. A price check only works if the two companies actually compete. Ownership is usually public and worth two minutes.
  • The market floor is the natural counterweight. Eight of the ten market merchants here are not part of a national group, and several publish no website at all, which is why they are easy to miss.
  • Watch the specialists. The merchants carrying Asian, Indian and Hispanic lines, or one deep category, are the hardest to replace and the least visible online.

Unfiltered

What people say about buying produce in Chicago

24 comments quoted verbatim from public threads, researched specifically for this city rather than reused from elsewhere on the site.

r/AskChicago18 points
Historically we had the [produce / grocery wholesale warehouses along South Water Street](https://chicagology.com/chicagostreets/southwaterstreet/). These were leveled and now it’s Wacker drive, various office towers, and the riverwalk
Read the original comment
r/chicago2 points
My grandfather was in the banana business there. I think I was about 20 years old before I realized he was saying South Water Market instead of salt water market.
Read the original comment
r/chicago35 points
Until Google & McDonald's moved in, "The West Loop" was Haymarket. There were tons of butchers, grocers, and produce distributors over there. It was there for over 100 years.
Read the original comment
r/Cooking86 points
I seem to see a lot of "farmers" selling produce out of cardboard boxes that clearly came from Chicago's very large restaurant produce market. Note that there are also hundreds of small produce shops all over Chicago that do the same thing, and I happily shop at one. But I am not going to pay a premium price for the "pleasure" of someone carting it to a "farmer's market" and marking it up 200%. Maybe there *are* local purveyors at some farmer's markets, but not the ones on Chicago's north side and northwest suburbs that I've been to.
Read the original comment
r/chicago32 points
I don't know about sams club, but at least a couple of the regulars at the Pilsen market just buy stock from the produce wholesalers nearby. The growers they get tend to be smaller in-city operations, with the associated small selection. The honey dude is legit though. The farmers I've met tend to focus on the larger markets like Green City, Logan etc.
Read the original comment
r/chicagofood16 points
Green City is still the best quality (but a nightmare logistically), Logan Square if you want the "scene", Lincoln Square is my favorite for high quality but more easy/accessible. Pricing is much higher everywhere than it used to be. Be careful of a lot of the smaller markets around the city where some vendors pass off commodity vegetables as actual local product...
Read the original comment

Pulled from 70 Chicago produce threads across r/chicago, r/chicagofood, r/AskChicago and r/Cooking. Its own corpus: no comment here appears on the homepage or on the Chicago meat or seafood pages. Comments are unedited and link back to the original thread. They are individual experiences, not evidence about any distributor in general, and we deliberately do not aggregate them into a score.

Most Chicago produce distributors still take orders the way they did 20 years ago

Phone calls, voicemails, emails with attachments, then hand-keying it all into a system. VoiceOrder Solutions gives food distributors a voice and web front door on the process they already run, so orders arrive digitized and reps get back to selling.

Talk to VoiceOrder Solutions

Questions

Produce distributors in Chicago: common questions

Where is the Chicago produce market?

The Chicago International Produce Market is at 2404 S. Wolcott Avenue, Chicago, IL 60608, just off Damen and the Stevenson expressway. It is open seven days a week, 365 days a year, it is free to shop there, and there is free parking at the north and south ends. Ten of the suppliers on this page trade from it, in units numbered 1 to 36.

Can a restaurant buy directly at the Chicago International Produce Market?

Yes. The market says its merchants serve retailers, distributors, foodservice, government agencies and even church and school organisations, and can satisfy all size orders. There is no membership fee of the kind a cash and carry charges. Individual merchants keep their own hours and holiday closures, so check the one you want rather than relying on the market being open every day.

What happened to the South Water Market?

It traded from 1925 to 2001 in terra cotta-clad buildings on 15th Street between Racine and Morgan, and Block Club Chicago describes it as the city's largest produce market. The buildings still stand and are now the University Commons condominiums. In 2003 the trade moved southwest to 2404 S. Wolcott Avenue and became the Chicago International Produce Market, which is where most of the wholesale produce sellers went.

What is the minimum order for a Chicago produce distributor?

It is set per account and almost none of them publish it, because it depends on your volume, your location and whether a truck already passes you. The market floor is the usual way around a minimum: ten of the suppliers here trade at 2404 S. Wolcott, where you can buy what you need and collect it rather than meeting a drop size.

Are Testa Produce and Panama Banana related?

Yes. Both are owned by FreshEdge, which is backed by Wind Point Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm. FreshEdge acquired Testa Produce in May 2023 and later acquired Panama Banana, which trades on the market floor. It matters if you are keeping two suppliers so that pricing stays competitive, because those two do not compete with each other.

Why do some listings here have so little detail?

Because four of the market merchants publish no website of their own. For those, the only first-party source is the market's merchant directory, which gives the company name, unit number and phone number. We list exactly that and no more. Writing a description of a company's range from third party listings would be guessing, and this directory does not do that.

Is this directory paid or independent?

No distributor paid to be listed and there are no affiliate links to any of them. The directory is published by VoiceOrder Solutions, an ordering software company, and that relationship is disclosed in the footer of every page and on our about page. Listings are ordered by supplier type, not by any commercial relationship.

How was this list of Chicago produce distributors built?

We ran search passes for Chicago wholesale produce suppliers, captured the Chicago International Produce Market's own merchant directory, and then captured each candidate company's website and read the details off it, in September 2026. Six candidates were excluded and the reasons recorded: one is a cartage company rather than a wholesaler, one is outside the metro, one returned an error, and three appear only in review aggregators with no company site to verify against.

A note on what is missing

Two known gaps. Greco and Sons, a large Chicago Italian foodservice distributor now being acquired by Sysco, is not listed because its site blocked our capture and we would not write it up from third-party sources. Stock Yards is a US Foods brand rather than an independent distributor, so it appears under US Foods rather than as its own listing. If you run a Chicago produce distribution business and we have missed you, that is an omission rather than a judgement.

Listings verified September 2026. Details change; always confirm terms on a call.