A Wholesale Food Distributor Supplying NYC Kitchens Since the 1890s
E. Armata Inc. is a family-run fruit and produce wholesaler in the Hunts Point Market, supplying restaurants, grocers, bodegas and institutional kitchens across New York City and the tri-state area for over 100 years.
With a modest start in Manhattan at the Washington Street Market, E. Armata is now one of the largest wholesalers operating in the Hunts Point Market and is proud to be in its 4th generation. We supply everyone from major foodservice buyers and supermarket groups to the small grocers who come to the market themselves.
To open an account, call 718-991-5600 or complete a credit application.
Who We Supply
Restaurants and foodservice
Chefs and kitchen managers ordering for daily prep need three things from a supplier: consistency, a short lead time, and someone who picks up the phone. We deliver into New York kitchens every day from our stall at the Hunts Point Market, and our salespeople walk the floor each morning — so when an item is eating well, or a crop is short, you hear it from us before it turns up on your invoice.
Independent grocers and bodegas
Neighbourhood stores buy broad and shallow — a few cases across many items rather than pallets of one. We break to the case, and our specialty and Latin/Caribbean range is built for exactly this trade.
Schools, hospitals and institutional kitchens
Institutional buyers need documented food safety as much as they need produce. Our SQF certification, HACCP-trained quality-control team and USDA-standard inspection process are built to satisfy a procurement review, and we can supply the documentation your compliance team asks for.
Caterers and event kitchens
Volume that changes week to week, often at short notice. We are used to it.
Distributors and re-packers
We supply other distributors and foodservice vendors from the same floor, with a dedicated warehouse and repacking facility on site.
Delivery Across New York City
We deliver daily to all five boroughs — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island — as well as Long Island, New Jersey and the surrounding region.
Our facility sits inside the Hunts Point Cooperative Market in the Bronx, which puts our trucks minutes from the Bruckner and the Major Deegan and starts every route inside the city rather than outside it.
Buyers who prefer to collect can pick up directly at our Hunts Point facility, where an order can be staged and ready for you.
How to Order
Opening an account
New foodservice customers start with a credit application. Once approved you are assigned a customer code and given access to our online order portal.
Placing an order
Order through the portal with your customer login, or directly with your salesperson.
Order sizes and cut-off times
Order sizes and cut-off times vary by item, season and delivery route — a five-day-a-week restaurant and a single bodega do not buy the same way. Call 718-991-5600 and your salesperson will confirm what applies to your account, including minimums on specific products and the daily cut-off for your route.
Billing
Invoices are paid through our secure online payment portal, available 24/7. Billing questions: accountsreceivable@earmata.com or 718-991-5600.
What Is a Wholesale Food Distributor?
Most supermarkets, shops and restaurants do not grow the fruit and vegetables they sell and serve. Rather than deal with dozens of individual growers and shippers, they buy through a wholesale food distributor who aggregates that supply, holds it in temperature-controlled storage and delivers it in the quantities a working kitchen or store actually uses.
That is what we do. Our network of growers and shippers lets us supply businesses with produce in bulk, in the mix they need, on a daily cycle — so inventory stays stocked without anyone having to manage a supply chain on the side.
How Our Distribution Process Works
E. Armata works with hundreds of growers and shippers, relationships built over four generations. We have established trust with everyone in the chain — the grower, the trucker, our own team on the floor, and the customers who count on us daily.
- Sourcing. We buy direct from hundreds of carefully selected growers and shippers, including Del Monte, Dole, Alpine Fresh, Bengard, C&B Farms, Kern Ridge, Mucci Farms and Jim Pandol & Company, alongside our own E. Armata label.
- Receiving and storage. Product arrives daily, is photographed on arrival, inspected, and held in over 60,000 square feet of temperature-controlled storage. We use RF guns to track every item from the moment it is unloaded to the moment it leaves, which keeps inventory accurate and orders quick to pick.
- Delivery. Our own fleet of temperature-controlled trucks runs daily. We monitor and track vehicle speed to keep drops safe for our drivers and the neighbourhoods we serve, and we use routing technology to keep schedules tight.
Click Here To View Our Shipping Partners
SQF Certified
To show how seriously we take quality, E. Armata has gone through the rigorous process of becoming SQF certified. The Safe Quality Food Program, offered through the Safe Quality Food Institute, is recognised worldwide by retailers, brand owners and foodservice providers. We are also GMP certified and hold a 100 percent superior rating under the FDA’s HACCP programme, our quality-control team is trained in the seven HACCP principles, and our inspectors are trained to USDA Agricultural Marketing Service standards.
For institutional and healthcare buyers who need certification documentation for a procurement file, ask your salesperson and we will provide it.
Why Freshness Is the Whole Job
Any business built on produce will tell you the same thing: the window is short. A case that sat too long on a dock, or rode in a trailer that ran warm, does not recover — and it reaches the customer as waste, a menu change, or a shelf that looks wrong.
That is why the parts of this that sound like logistics are actually the product. Daily inbound means nothing sits. Photographing product on arrival means condition is documented before it is our word against yours. Over 60,000 square feet of temperature-controlled storage and a dedicated repacking facility mean the cold chain does not break in the middle. RF-gun tracking means we can find any lot, and tell you where it came from, in minutes.
For a restaurant that translates into fewer credits and less prep-day improvisation. For a grocer it is shelf life the customer actually gets to use. Neither is glamorous, and both are the reason people stay with us.
Building an Order That Fits Your Operation
A twelve-category range is only useful if it maps to how you actually buy. A restaurant group running one menu across four rooms wants depth in a narrow list. A bodega wants a little of everything, including the Latin and Caribbean specialty items most suppliers do not stock consistently. An institutional kitchen wants the same three things every week, documented, with no surprises.
We break to the case for all of them, which means a single-site operator is not forced into pallet quantities to get an account. In the salad department, brand-name clamshells come in both organic and conventional choices — arugula, 50/50 blend, herb, kale, spring mix. If you need organic elsewhere, ask; availability moves with the season and we will tell you honestly what we can hold.
For the full produce range and category listings, see our wholesale produce distribution page.
Serving NYC Foodservice Since the 1890s
Our company comes from humble beginnings. It started in the late 1890s with Erasmo Armata, a Sicilian immigrant who arrived through Ellis Island and sold lemons out of a burlap sack on the streets of Manhattan. The family took a stall at the Washington Street Market, moved to the newly built Hunts Point Market in 1967, and Chris and Paul Armata have been the company’s sole owners since 1997.
Four generations later we are a cornerstone of the Hunts Point Market and one of the longest-established food distributors in New York. If you would like to work with us, contact our team or call 718-991-5600.
