Getting Fresh Food to Mackinac... Journey of an Island Strawberry
By Leslie Rott

Getting fresh fruit to Mackinac Island in a timely fashion is not always easy, but with practice and coordination, it can almost become routine. Take the strawberry, for example.

When Woods restaurant needs strawberries for a fruit salad, for instance, Grand Hotel’s purchasing director, James Zeart, might call LaGrasso Brother’s Produce in Detroit, one of four produce distributors the hotel uses on a daily basis.

By ordering six days a week, “I can buy more frequently and keep fresher products here,” Mr. Zeart said.

From one of three growers that LaGrasso Brother’s uses, strawberries are shipped from California by refrigerated truck. If the order were to be placed on a Wednesday, the berries will arrive in Detroit on a Sunday. To speed the trip, a two-man team splits shifts in the cross-country drive, said Jim Nagel, customer service manager at LaGrasso. His company has the trucks to provide such service, he added, and Grand Hotel has the volume to make it worthwhile.

On the trip, the strawberries are monitored by satellite, and if the temperature of the strawberries fluctuates too much, the drivers are alerted and can fix the problem immediately.

At Detroit, the strawberries are shrink wrapped and labeled for Grand Hotel, then head for Mackinac Island at 10 p.m. Trucks are swapped at Gaylord, and the strawberries arrive at the Arnold freight dock in St. Ignace about 5 a.m., where they are put into a holding refrigerator until the first boat leaves for Mackinac Island at 7:30 a.m. According to Mr. Nagel, the “product never gets out of the cold chain.”

On the Island, Mackinac Island Service Company picks up the strawberries from the Arnold dock and delivers them by dray to the hotel.

The produce and other perishable items for all of their restaurants are stored at the main Grand Hotel kitchen. At night, the Woods chef fills out a requisition, which he sends to the hotel. The strawberries are pulled out of Grand’s storeroom the next morning and shipped by another dray up to the restaurant, where they become part of someone's next meal.

In addition to LaGrasso Brothers, the hotel also orders produce from GW Produce in Detroit and Sysco and Gordon Food Service in Grand Rapids.