Fruit Importer Peter Kopke Sr. Remembered For Chile Trade

Fruit Importer Peter Kopke Sr. Remembered For Chile Trade

Peter Kopke Sr., who spent more than seven decades in the fruit industry and helped build the Chilean grape trade in the U.S., died Aug. 5. He was 89. Kopke got his start at age 14 at the fruit auctions on Pier 28 in Manhattan, working summers for his father’s company, the Port Washington, New York-based William H. Kopke Jr. Inc. He marked prices, updated records of the year’s business transactions and handled international correspondence. He jo…