Joy Produce

Peru's Ica Valley is one of agriculture's most improbable success stories. Bracketed by the Atacama desert on one side and the Pacific on the other, the region receives almost no rainfall — which is precisely what makes it extraordinary for growing grapes. Irrigation systems draw from the Andes, the air stays dry and warm year-round, and pests have virtually no foothold in the sand. Joy Produce built their operation here with intention: large-scale vineyard blocks laid out across the dunes, farmed with the kind of precision that only comes from growing in a region that rewards discipline.

The counter-season window is what makes Joy strategically valuable at Hunts Point. When California's table grape season wraps in late fall, Joy's Ica Valley vineyards are just coming into peak harvest — filling the shelf from November through April with green and red seedless varieties that arrive firm, well-colored, and sized to retail spec. Their packing facility in Ica handles all grading, clamshell packing, and export preparation on-site, which means the fruit moving north has minimal handling between the vine and the shelf.

Grapes are Joy's focus — and every variety in their lineup is selected for its performance on the road to the Northeast. Their green seedless program runs sweet and crisp with large, uniform berries; their red seedless arrives deep-colored, firm-tipped, and sized for retail display without sorting. The harvest window in Ica is long enough that Joy can stage shipments across multiple variety timings, giving buyers a consistent supply arc rather than a single wave followed by a gap.

"Joy Produce is the partner that makes December and January grapes reliable. When the domestic season closes out, Joy is already landing fruit that your accounts don't have to compromise on."

Nathel & Nathel  ·  Hunts Point

The relationship with Nathel & Nathel extends Joy's fruit into the Bronx Terminal Market and out to retail, food service, and independent accounts across the tri-state area. The logistics are tight — Peru to port to Hunts Point — and Joy's cold chain keeps brix and texture intact through every leg of the journey. That reliability is what turns a seasonal supplier into a program partner.

A packing program built to deliver retail-ready quality at wholesale scale.

Joy's Ica packing facility handles every step of post-harvest preparation under one roof: sorting by variety and size, hand-selection for color and cluster integrity, and clamshell or bag packing under the Joy Fresh label. Quality-control staff work directly on the line, which means defects are caught in Peru — not at the dock in New York. For buyers running retail programs, that kind of accountability translates directly into less shrink and fewer repack calls.

The farm workforce behind the program has been built over years — many of the field and packing team members have grown up in the operation, and it shows in the care that goes into each cluster. In a region where labor continuity is increasingly difficult, Joy Produce's investment in its people shows up directly in the consistency of the product that lands at Hunts Point.