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Plant City tutors believe their cities biggest claim to fame is being the home of Florida’s largest producer and shipper of strawberries known as “Wish Farms.”

The name Wish farms is derived from a man named Wishnatzki, a Russian who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

The story of Harris Wishnatzki is a humble one and provides an excellent example to Plant City tutors to inform their students about how hard work and determination pay off. It is also very true to the typical “American Dream” that so many had when they left their families behind and moved to the United States in hopes of leading a better life.

Wishnatzki’s career began with a small investment in a pushcart. He would use the cart, which he manually pushed around the streets of New York City, to showcase and carry fruits and vegetables and sell them to passers by. His theory was simple, to go where the people were. By offering his customers convenience he could charge a little more and sell one or two pieces of fruit at a time, there was also no competition from neighboring market stalls. People would look out for him and buy from him regularly, he also picked up spur of the moment clientele who saw an apple and simply decided they would like one. It turned out that Wishnatzki was on to something and he and a fellow pushcart peddler named Nathel decided to join forces and invest in a fleet of carts so that they could be present in multiple locations at one time. With the increase in carts there was also an increase in demand for fresh produce. Wishnatzki had learned and made contacts through his work and began sourcing his fruit and vegetables from further afield in order to be frugal and in order to offer his customers the freshest and best quality produce. He stated off by taking occasional trips to Florida to source produce, but it ended up being more advantageous for him to stay permanently in Florida and oversee operations there while his business partner took control of goings on in New York City. The produce shipping operation run by Wishnatzki was in Plant City.

In New York fresh strawberries were not available year round due to the climate. Wishnatzki’s plan was to make strawberries available to his New York City customers throughout the year by shipping them in from Florida.

After Wishnatzki died in 1955 his business was taken over by his children, and following on his grandchildren who run the strawberry processing business to this day in Plant City.