By Paul Bufano
pbufano@hunter.cuny.edu
Mario Andreani
Photo by Meredith Whitefield Goncalves
Mario Andreani calls himself a part-time fireman. It’s his light-hearted way of saying his job is to make sure that everything is in order at S. Katzman Produce.
Andreani is the company’s general administrative supervisor. And though he leaves the Hunts Point Terminal Market and goes home every night, he never really clocks out. Putting in about 60 hours a week, he oversees the company’s 235 employees, managing the office and the downstairs platform and talking with suppliers and customers seven days a week.
Andreani has been working at Katzman for 22 years. Starting out as a salesman, he has also moved produce, loaded trucks, made deliveries and washed up at the end of the day.
“I made my way up because I’m not afraid to put in the work and get dirty,” said Andreani. “I have and continue to get involved with whatever needs to be taken care of.”
The Katzman company has made great strides since the 1920s when Samuel Katzman began the family business by selling greens from a horse-drawn wagon. Today its annual revenues exceed $200 million. “On any given day,” its Web site boasts, “we have more than 500 items in our cold stores.” Its 225,000 square foot, refrigerated warehouse holds everything from the prosaic—potatoes—to the exotic—miracle fruit, a berry grown by only one farmer in the United States.
The company operates 24 hours a day, only breaking on Sundays from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. But its success, according to Andreani, comes not just from long hours but from the hard work its employees put in.
“This is a tremendous company, and we owe everything to our workers,” he said. “I try to be respectful and to keep the atmosphere jovial. I never try to look at it like I’m the boss, but at the same time, there’s a line that they know not to cross.”
The company’s work ethic, Andreani said, starts at the top. Owner Stephen Katzman is in the office almost every day, often all day, sometimes staying until 1 in the morning.
The company is concerned, however, about the condition of the market, and wants the city, which owns the land, to help. Echoing widely-expressed sentiments at the Terminal Market, Andreani says the market needs to be renovated and enlarged.The Katzman company would triple in size if it could, he said.
In addition, he pointed to his own commute as evidence that traffic on the Bruckner Expressway has been terrible for years, and is getting progressively worse.
The market as a whole does more than $2 billion in business, he points out, but he worries that the city either isn’t aware of its problems or doesn’t care. And he offers a lesson he’s learned over the years: “To be successful it takes hard work and a whole lot of ambition,” Andreani, says. “One thing is for certain though, if you don’t grow, you go!”