Williamsburg Whole Foods features rare produce kiosk

Order hard-to-find produce through the Baldor Forager kiosk. Photo Credit: Vincent Barone

Tired of plain old kale and green grapes? The city’s newest Whole Foods has your number.

At the Whole Foods Market Williamsburg, which opened July 26 on Bedford Avenue, shoppers with a hankering for rare produce can order some at the touch of a button.

The in-store digital kiosk Baldor Forager, located in the produce section of the grocery store, offers a selection of up to 50 specialty items that can be ordered for instore pick-up in a day or two.

Designed by Baldor Specialty Foods, a Bronx-based importer and distributor of fresh produce and specialty foods, the kiosk is debuting at the Williamsburg Whole Foods and features produce like fresh garbanzo beans, fresh wasabi root and microgreens.

“We think it’s needed in the marketplace,” said Ben Walker, director of marketing and business development for Baldor. “If you want these items today, where do you get them? Most people don’t have the time or patience to go around looking.”

Baldor works with restaurants up and down the East Coast, supplying them with exotic products like scorpion peppers from Central America and baby pineapples from South Africa. Now, customers can have access to some of the items it sources from more than 1,000 farms and partners around the globe.

“People today are much more curious and adventurous when it comes to how they cook,” Walker said. “With the way the shopper is changing today — they’re more educated, more demanding, they want to know where their food is coming from, if it’s organic.”

The available produce will change weekly based on seasonality and be in limited supply. Though the kiosk is only available at the Williamsburg store, there are plans to expand the service to Whole Foods in Manhattan this year.