“We are a wholesale processing operation that tries to cater to the customer and make everyone as happy as possible,” said Patrick Burke, a senior executive of the Chelsea, MA-based company.”
He noted that 2025 has been steady overall, but not without challenges.
“It was a relatively flat year for most of the year,” Burke said. “There didn’t seem to be markets on anything. Supply was abundant across many categories, which kept pricing softer and movement slower until seasonal shifts created more activity. Once you get to the lettuce transition and everything like that, stuff seems to get a little bit more active.”
As the calendar turns to the holidays, Burke noted traditional categories surge, including peeled yams and other Thanksgiving staples that carry into December and Christmas. The uptick has helped balance what he described as a year marked by oversupply at times.
“Sometimes it’s a little harder when there’s an overabundance than when things are a little tighter,” he said. “Less supply tends to make you a little busier.”
Garden Fresh’s customer base is rooted in the foodservice sector, where reliability, value and responsiveness are keys to success.
“The formula for building strong relationships is not complicated, it’s just being fair, priced right, giving them good stuff and working with them to meet their needs,” Burke said.
The company emphasizes consistency across its wide range of processed vegetables and pre-cut items, areas where it continues to excel and deepen its specialization.
“We do a lot of processed vegetables and pre-cut items and do a really good job with that,” Burke said.
Serving the Boston region also means catering to a diverse customer landscape that spans large restaurant groups, institutional foodservice and independent eateries. Burke believes that variety strengthens the market rather than complicates it.
“It’s like any business — you’ve got to give the customer whatever they want,” he said. “If you don’t do that, you won’t be around too long.”
Throughout 2025, Garden Fresh continued investing in facility upgrades and operational improvements to support efficiency and maintain high standards.
“We’re constantly updating our processing facility,” Burke said. “We just got a bunch of new condensing units for the air conditioning system. We just made a new break room — stuff like that. We continue to keep it up to date.”
While there are no major expansion plans currently underway, the approach remains focused and steady.
“Just keep trying to make the customers we have happy,” Burke said. “And if someone new wants to join us, great, we’ll make them happy too.”
As for what makes Garden Fresh a top player in a strong produce town like Boston, Burke prefers to let the company’s longevity speak for itself.
“We’ve been in business for 55 years,” he said. “That’s going to be part of it, because people buy our stuff.”
Looking forward to 2026, Burke remains optimistic and focused on fundamentals rather than sweeping changes.
“Things just evolve in a slow way,” he said. “For now, Garden Fresh remains committed to doing what it’s always done — processing high-quality fresh items, delivering consistency and putting customers first.”
Photo: Adam Feld, Michael Burke, Patrick Burke, John Whitney, Ben Czuchra and Brendan Whitney
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