On a warm June evening, Aqeel Ahmed and his son Musa Khan eagerly waited outside their recently opened Delco Farmers Market in Folcroft for a minivan and its long-awaited cargo.
The drop-off occurred at 6 p.m., with their Upper Darby dealer pulling up right on schedule.
The father-son duo behind Delco Farmers Market had spent two months coordinating to get their hands on the 36 boxes of three varieties of the semi-illicit content. For this, they had to navigate a secretive, high-stakes network of WhatsApp groups and subgroups.
The boxes of Anwar Ratol, Chaunsa, and Sindhri filled the produce section with a smell that defined Ahmed’s summers growing up in Karachi.
“It smells like you’re in Pakistan, that’s how fresh they are,” Khan said.
The cargo of mangoes had traveled more than 7,000 air miles from Khan and Ahmed’s homeland, where they are considered the King of Fruits and celebrated in songs and poetry.
Within six hours, all 36 boxes were sold.
With customs restrictions, high transport costs, and a short shelf life, Pakistani mangoes are difficult to come by in the U.S. despite being approved for import in 2010. But luckily, there’s a network of mango dealers across the country making it possible for the diaspora to acquire their homeland’s national fruit, albeit from a very limited supply.
“For a group of internet-savvy immigrants and their children, a new option has emerged over the past few years: Middlemen and logistics experts acquire the mangoes from farms in Pakistan and sell them over WhatsApp at a premium, often only a few days after harvest,” James Beard-winning writer Ahmed Ali Akbar wrote in the food publication Eater in 2021.
An active member of the Philly-area Muslim and Pakistani communities, Aqeel Ahmed was aware of the vast mango trade network and wanted to sell the fruit even before he opened the supermarket in May.
“When it was illegal to bring Pakistani mangoes, people — not my dad — would smuggle it from Canada, because it was legal to bring [the fruit] there,“ Khan said. ”A lot of people used to drive all the way to Chicago, New York, and California to get these mangoes. So it was a big thing and you always knew who had it.”
Ahmed previously ordered from a mango middleman in Long Island. His son was 12 years old when he had his first bite of a Pakistani mango in America.
“It just tasted better; it was so refreshing,” Khan, 19, said. “They’re juicier — you need to eat it over the sink because every time it’s a mess. And it’s definitely sweeter.”
Ahmed began his search for a local mango dealer in early April — mango season, which lasts roughly from April to September in Pakistan, was around the corner and he knew dealers would be overwhelmed with orders soon. He heard through the WhatsApp grapevine that there was a mango middleman in Upper Darby. So he spent the month calling all the people he knew in the area.
At the end of April, he made contact.
“My dad called him and said, ‘I’m local in the community as well. We’re opening up a big supermarket and we want to sell Pakistani mangoes,’” Khan said. “It took a little bit of convincing, but [the mango dealer] was able to get us boxes … there’s such a high demand.”
The Upper Darby middleman initially gave the father-and-son duo 36 boxes, with 12 boxes each of three varieties of mangoes: the small, sweet, and aromatic Anwar Ratol; the almost fiberless, custard-like Chaunsa; and the sweet-tart Sindhri.
Each 4.4-pound box held six or seven mangoes and cost the store $33.
Before the July Fourth holiday, Ahmed ordered another shipment to replenish the first. There are fewer than 200 boxes being sold at the store for $40 each, with a four-to-five day shelf-life.
Pakistani mangoes can go for over $7 apiece due to transportation costs, Akbar said.
After one post about their mango stock, Khan said the store’s Instagram DMs were flooded with people looking to buy. Some even asked if the mangoes could be shipped as far as Kansas, California, and Ohio.
But this was the last order from the mango dealer, Khan said.
With the high demand, the Delco Farmers Market family is looking to cut out the middleman and import directly from Pakistan in the future.
“We didn’t ask [the mango middleman] how he got them,” said Khan, “but we figured out how after a company in Pakistan contacted us on Instagram.”
The middlemen across the country pick up mangoes from airport cargo bays, including Ahmed’s dealer who picks his stock from the Philadelphia airport. With no direct flights to America from Pakistan, the mangoes need to secure passage to a hub city like Dubai before arriving at an American international airport, said Akbar.
Upon arrival, the fruit is taken to an irradiation facility, quarantined, and then loaded onto another cargo flight.
And all of this needs to happen within a few days of harvest before the fruit spoils.
The next step to going solo, Khan said, is to figure out a way to get the mangoes to Dubai and then to an international airport in Texas or New York.
“Our main goal is to have our own boxes — we want them to say Delco Farmers Market,” Khan said.
Growing up in Lower Merion, Khan never saw a big supermarket dedicated to selling Pakistani and halal products in his neighborhood. The goal for his family, he said, was to be that hub where Philly-area immigrants and diaspora could shop meats, prepared foods, and fruits from their home country.
“We’re not making anything by selling Pakistani mangoes, but we’re serving the community,” Khan said. “And to have them in our own store after eating it as a kid is a full-circle moment.”
Delco Farmers Market: 1850 Delmar Drive, Folcroft, Pa.; 610-862-1955; delcofarmersmarket.com
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