The Albinder Family; Four Generations of Agriculture
This upcoming summer, Hudson River Fruit Distributors in Milton, N.Y. will be turning 60 years old. It all started in 1963, when Isador Albinder and his son Harold were granted a loan from the bank to buy the business, which came with a packing house and a cold storage shed. But none of this would’ve been possible if it hadn’t been for Isador’s family.
In 1932, Isador Albinder, his eight siblings, and two parents left Russia when he was 12 years old as the Jewish people were being persecuted. They settled in Brooklyn, N.Y. and for the first few years, the family struggled financially. Albinder took it upon himself to buy produce from Hunts Point Market and sell it on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan to make money.
“He started learning the names of the growers, the producers, and the farmers, many of them from the Hudson Valley,” said vice president of sales and marketing Alisha Albinder, fourth generation. “He started coming up [to the Hudson Valley], his horse-drawn wagon became a car and vehicle and he started coming up to the country to buy the product directly, instead of buying it out of the market, as he had more control over his product.”
According to Alisha Albinder, it was her grandfather Harold who was the pioneer of the growing aspect as he was very ambitious and wanted to own his own farms. From the 60s to 80s, the business pursued many more sales relationships with several customers and supermarkets. In 1980, Daniel Albinder, son of Harold and now chief executive officer, became the third generation of HRFD to join the family business as an apple grower, packer, shipper and helped maintain the 1,000 acres of land– 400 of which are apple farms.
“He [Daniel] worked in the farms and emerged in the packing house and he ran the shipping and receiving for a few years. Then he eventually ended up in sales and is now the president of the company,” said Alisha Albinder.
Fast forward to 2013, Alisha joined the family company as the fourth generation. Her and her father have been working hand-in-hand with the day-to-day side of the business having faced many challenges that agricultural workers tend to face on a yearly basis.
“One of the biggest challenges is labor. It’s very tedious work. You’re talking about working in agriculture and outside in the elements and the rain, snow. There’s competition from other states, from other countries in terms of apple pricing. There’s competition with other commodities, or other shippers, so all the facets of any business, supply and demand issues in terms of oversupply,” said Alisha Albinder.
In May of 2021, Alisha’s brother Marcus joined the company as the operations manager.
“It’s pretty exciting to have my two children with me. My father and grandfather, we were three generations, we all had a role to play. And as my grandfather passed, and my father slowly retired, a lot of the responsibilities came on me. So when my kids came in, that took some pressure off, and also some excitement that I had that they can be involved in the business,” said Daniel Albinder.
The business could even be continued through a fifth generation in Alisha Albinder’s two children, three-year-old Cayden and eight-month-old Rider.
“I think it would be great [for them to work with the business]. I would love it, and hopefully, it’s a business that they love, and then they can get into I think anybody who’s in the produce business, you got to really love it,” said Alisha Albinder. “We’re really honored to be able to keep doing it and hopefully we can keep doing it.”
