He had been Vice President of Sales, Chiquita Fresh North America, but when the Produce Marketing Association in San Diego announced the line-up of its new members of the Board of Directors, his company affiliation had quietly disappeared.
But Terrence P. (his friends… and everybody else… call him “Tip”) Murphy has landed on his feet as National Director Corporate Sales for Paganini Foods. The company imports produce from Italy, such as table grapes, kiwifruit, blood oranges and radicchio, with a substantial involvement in organic produce. They have a brand concept called BellaVita.
The founder, Celso Paganini, has a long heritage in the produce industry in Europe:
“…the Paganini family has been involved with exporting fruits and vegetables from Italy to Europe for nearly 100 years.
Growing up in the fresh produce business, as a child C. Paganini accompanied his father to their family’s apple and pear orchards in North Italy and to the terminal markets in Milan, and as a young man he learned the business from the bottom up starting with loading and unloading trucks by hand.”
Paginini Foods, however, first entered the U.S. market in 2002, focusing mostly on business in the northeast. But Tip Murphy is a nationally focused guy with long involvement at companies such as Wal-Mart.
His hiring is a sign that Mr. Paganini has big plans for the U.S. operation.
