Black River Produce keeps on growing

Nearly everyday when I'm on the road, I'll see at least one of the 38 refrigerated Black River Produce trucks headed out to make a delivery somewhere in Vermont, or perhaps along Vermont's borders into New Hampshire, New York and Massachusetts. It's quite a change from the company's early years. Established in 1978, when they began selling plants and produce out of a Volkswagon bus, Black River Produce was founded by Stephen Birge and Mark Curran, two selfproclaimed ski bums living in the southern Vermont ski town of Ludlow, where Okemo Mountain Resort is.

"Steve was working in restaurants and I was doing carpentry work, but we both thought there was opportunity to start a business in Ludlow," Curran wrote in an e-mail interview. Our concept was to open a natural food store and sell fresh produce as well.

"We each had $300, so with that we rented space in the old feed store and started in. To make it worthwhile traveling to Boston for produce, we talked to some of the local restaurants to see if they were interested in buying wholesale. When they got product from us they said it was a lot better than what they had been receiving and told other chefs about us."