Nat Feinn
Nat Feinn
The company name comes from the addition of Charles Feinn into the family business, which happened sometime in the early 1950s. It wasn’t too much later that Sam Finkle was invited to move his family from the East and join the firm. Sam’s connection was through marriage as his wife was one of Nat Feinn’s granddaughters. Unfortunately Nat Feinn passed away in 1961 leaving the running of the company to his son, Charles, and grandson-in-law Sam. Bryne Finkle, Sam’s son, joined the company fulltime in 1983. “I actually started working for the company in 1971 when I was 13 years old packing tomatoes in the summer.” He caught the bug and pursued a produce industry career. Others in his generation did not have the same passion.
“Three of my cousins (Charles’ offspring) and my brother gave the business a try but it really wasn’t something they wanted to do. They have long since moved on to other things.” Byrne does have a 10 year old daughter who has expressed interest in pursuing the family business…but she is only 10.
Charles Feinn passed away about a decade ago, but San Finkle, at 85, still works full time at the company and runs it as he has for the past couple of decades with his son, Byrne. “He’s here every day,” said Byrne.
Nat Feinn, who originally grew up in Connecticut, was a tomato broker who followed the seasons working the various deals including Cuba, Mexico and Florida when he was a young man in the first half of the 20th Century. His great grandson, Byrne Finkle, said Nat was working the Nogales tomato deal sometime in the 1940s when he was introduced to tomato production in California. He liked the Golden State and the San Joaquin Valley, so he decided to start a company buying and repacking tomatoes to be sold to various customers. The year was 1948. While the firm has evolved and expanded over the years, it still sells tomatoes not so differently than it did 65 years ago.