Produce Family

Creating Community through Apples and Oranges at Natural Pantry

“Hey, Natural Pantry Family, it’s me, Sven, your Produce Man.” This greeting appears most mornings on the social media feeds of Anchorage grocery store Natural Pantry. With delight and honesty, Sven paces through the newest shipment to stock the shelves. Day to day, week to week, the stock changes with the seasons. Today a new specialty grape from California producer Murray Family Farms. Tomorrow a batch of tart baby sorrel from local Alaska Sprouts. Chicory and radicchio in dizzying varieties. Mounds of purple sweet potatoes. Plump, brilliant dragonfruit and golden starfruit. Heaps of bright citrus from the tiniest kumquats to the most massive pomelo.

Sven beams as he lifts up his newest import, and acknowledges with chagrin when a pallet of a certain veggie didn’t come in, hindered by weather. Sometimes, he even does a taste test. After following Sven via video through the aisles of Natural Pantry, suddenly the trip to the grocery store feels urgent and exhilarating, rather than a chore—a joyful outing to be one of the “Nat Pan Produce Fam.”

Sven Solberg has found joy in produce since he was a child growing up in the aisles of Natural Pantry, an Anchorage institution since 1976. Founded by Sven’s parents Rick and Vikki Solberg, as Anchorage Garden and Farm, the store originally sold bulk foods and greenhouses. As they focused on grocery, they changed the name in 1978 to Natural Pantry. The business grew, moving multiple times, most recently settling in its 44,500-square-foot location on W. 36th Avenue and A Street in 2012.

One of eleven children, Sven remembers helping stack the apples after school: “Pops would bring me to work, and I loved it. Whether it was after football practice or Boy Scouts, we would always make sure to fill the produce.” As a child, Sven didn’t just like to stock produce, he liked (and likes) to eat it, too. He recalls, “Growing up, my uncle and dad would always tell me to stop eating all the profits.”

Apples are indeed a particular highlight at Natural Pantry. Sven’s earliest memory as “Produce Man” (or boy as it were) is helping his father Rick select the apple varieties to bring in. Sven fully took over buying when the store moved to its current location. With Sven as the Produce Man, Natural Pantry supplies Anchorage with rare, hard to find apple varietals, from the rosy-pink-inside Lucy glo to the dark, almost purple-red-skinned Arkansas black. Sven brings in 79 different types of apples throughout the year.

But importing such a range of apples and unusual, fresh fruits and vegetables—much less basic produce—to Alaska is no small task. Being the Produce Man is not just stacking apples. Sven’s work involves a constant calculus of sales, seasons, and transportation times, developing relationships with sellers, and maintaining shelves.

Most produce comes in on freight, which means 2,000−3,000 miles of travel from origin to aisle. On Tuesday and Thursday, Sven must get orders out by 1 pm Alaska time to ensure produce will make the barge. Despite his diligence, sometimes orders don’t arrive as anticipated. Sven selects companies that have reputations for the freshest product to try to ensure that even with a delay, the best fruits and vegetables hit the shelves.

Those producers change seasonally as growing regions shift throughout the year. Once the freight does make it to the Natural Pantry dock, Sven and his small team—Julian, and part-timers Josh and Tyler—do the heavy lifting, unloading pallets of berries and crates of salad late into the night. Sven’s videos are often posted in the wee hours of the morning. The long, and mostly roadless, journey for produce is not always kind to tender items. So Sven and his team must also determine what makes the shelves as they unload. Sven says that Saturdays are particularly hectic with constant restocking, “No matter how full I fill the shelves, [produce] seems to fly out there.”

He shares with his own children the passion for produce his parents passed to him. The offspring of Sven and his siblings are often featured in the Natural Pantry videos, and taste testing the healthy, fresh items elicits squeals and booty shakes of glee in these young Produce Family members.

In citrus season, a bright array of orange and yellow glowing orbs piles high. Sven likes to taste them individually and juice them together. “I bought a small juicer a year or so ago and will make a mix of them. The variety of TDE [a type of triple cross mandarin], blood orange for color, Algerian, and a pixie are a really good mix… but just plain eating, I would say cara cara for me, the kishu mandarin for my daughter.”

Sven clearly takes pride in connecting Alaskans to the rich diversity of high-quality items from small producers. He always seeks to stock the freshest items. He says, “I’m trying my best to get us Alaskans the best and freshest organic and specialty produce to our last frontier! We are looking for a farm to grow our own organic produce.”

Produce isn’t just a business. Sven’s enthusiasm belies how much he truly cares about his Natural Pantry Produce Family. Everyone who peruses the aisles, is invited to be a member, simply by sharing in the satisfaction of a juicy cara cara, a head of escarole, or pint of kiwi berries. Sven’s smile, and the abundant aisles welcome you to join the family. Fruits and vegetables—from apples to zucchinis—serve to connect and create community.

This story was originally published in Issue No. 32, Summer 2024