- November 23, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
Driving down Interstate 4 between Tampa and Lakeland, past the farmland, car dealerships, gas stations, homes and warehouses that line road, one building sticks out.
It’s a contemporary structure with huge windows that's covered in blonde wood. It's sitting on an immaculate campus right before an exit with a Denny’s, a Circle K and a Burger King. It looks like something you’d see in Scandinavia — not Plant City.
The seemingly out-of-place building is the headquarters of Wish Farm, the new home of a family business that traces its roots back to the 1900s. Gary Wishnatzki, whose grandfather first started the business in 1922, sees the digs not just as a new space for the business, but as his legacy.
And what a home it is.
The company declines to disclose how much it paid for the property it bought to build the headquarters nor how much the construction cost. But you don’t need to be an architecture critic to know they went all out.
There are conference tables repurposed from trees cut down to make way for construction; a reception desk made of pine logs; a wooden slide that connects the first and second floors; phone booths for employees to talk in peace; and soundproof tiles that look like clouds lining the ceiling and highlighted by blue lights to mimic the afternoon sky over accounting. A kitchen resembling a European dining hall is the company lunch room.
'I wanted it to be a place where people love coming to work. And I wanted it to be special.' Gary Wishnatzki, third generation owner of Wish Farms
It’s exhausting to catalog each feature. And that’s before you note the treehouse that doubles as a meeting room, the trails that lead through a forest and around the lake, the secret room hidden on the second floor, the two massive man-made trees inside the lobby, the full gym with showers, the wellness room and the rooftop garden.
“I went over every detail,” Wishnatzki says, adding a moment later that the doors to one of the men’s rooms opens the wrong way and he plans to fix it.
The 24,000-square-foot headquarters building sits on 36-acres alongside Wish’s new 130,000-square-foot warehouse and cooling facility.
The company, when all employees return June 1, will have 50 people working in the headquarters building and about 100 in the warehouse. It employs about 5,000 people worldwide.
One endearing feature of the new campus is how the company honors the people who helped build Wish Farms.
Nick Wishnatzki, Gary’s son and Wish Farm’s public relations manager, says it was important to the family that those who toiled as the company grew get the respect they deserve. To that end, rooms throughout the headquarters buildings are named for former employees and family members.
The biggest, or at least most noticeable, honor goes to three men. They are the men represented on three more than 20-foot billboards that resemble cardboard cutouts lining the interstate and likely the impetus for a great many conversations.
The taller of the two men is “Big Willie” Jackson and the shorter of the two is Ralph Houston Sr. Jackson and Houston were shipping employees in the 1960s and 70s, and were at Wish Farms when Gary Wishnatzki joined in 1974.
They were Gary Wishnatzki's mentors, helping him to learn the business from the ground up, Nick Wishnatzki says. “It’s kind of a corny line, but he says he looked up them and now he wants everybody else to look up to them.”
The third man, a little bit farther down the road, is Lonnie Gonzalez. He worked at Wish Farms for 57 years. Gonzalez, who recently died but was able to see the billboard after it was up, was a legendary figure at the company — known for shouting out “Strawberry!” every time a strawberry truck pulled in.
The billboards and office names are examples of Wish Farm’s commitment to remaining close to its roots, even as it continues to grow as a company with a global reach, Gary Wishnatzki says. That’s why when it decided it was time to build a new, permanent headquarters it was critical that the business remain in Plant City.
The company had been working out of a triple-wide trailer near the Plant City Farmer’s Market since the 1970s, and knew the new place would have to be close I-4 or along a major road to give the brand more visibility. Executives found the property it ended up building on in 2018.
Despite its nods to the past and a desire to keep close to its roots, the family has come a very long way since Harris Wishnatzki, Gary’s grandfather, landed on Ellis Island from Russia in 1904.
Harris Wishnatzki would go on to found Wishnatzki & Nathel, a wholesale business selling fruits and vegetables in Manhattan, in 1922. In 1929 he set up a buying and shipping operation in Plant City.
Gary Wishnatzki became president in 1990, taking over from his father, Joe, and uncle, Lester. In 2001 the Wishnatzki and Nathel families split up the business, and in 2010 the company changed its name to Wish Farm.
Today the company grows and markets four major berries and owns and manages farms in Florida and California. It also represents growers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile.
Wish Farms would not disclose how many acres of farmland it owns and manages, but in 2016 the Business Observer reported it was 2,500. Nick Wishnatzki says in an email that the reason Wish Farms is reticent about releasing updated numbers is "because our team is a little sensitive about our competitors and customers knowing too many specifics."
As for what the previous generations would think of the new headquarters — and how much was spent to build it, Gary Wishnatzki says his father Joe would think it was great. His uncle Lester, not so much.
“I looked at this and said, this is going to be part of my legacy. We’re going to build this once and it’s going to be our forever home,” Gary Wishnatzki says. “I wanted it to be a place where people love coming to work. And I wanted it to be special. And I wanted to be employee-centric and to be a fun atmosphere. This business can be very stressful, so this kind of balances it out with a little bit of fun.”
