Ms. Caplan earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1945. In 1951 she married Alfred H. Caplan, and when their first child, Karen, was born in 1955, Ms. Caplan sought a job that would have flexible enough hours to allow her to breastfeed.

She asked her husband’s aunt and uncle, who were managers at a wholesale produce market, if there were any such jobs available. She called on the right day; they had just lost their bookkeeper, and they brought her aboard despite her lack of bookkeeping experience or knowledge of the business.

“I knew nothing about produce or fruits and vegetables other than what I ate,” Ms. Caplan said in “Fear No Fruit,” a 2015 documentary film promoted on the company’s website about her.

She learned other aspects of the business, including sales, and began pushing unusual products for the time, beginning with fresh mushrooms. In the early 1960s, when two stalls became available, the Southern Pacific Railroad, landlord of the market, urged her to start her own business. She did and became the go-to distributor for anyone offering something unusual.

“The other people on the market were only interested in high-volume items,” Ms. Caplan told The Orange County Register in 2015. “Small farmers had no place to go. Nobody was interested. So I started listening to all these small farmers.”

The approach proved, well, fruitful. By 2003 the company was reported to have annual sales of about $50 million. Ms. Caplan built that success as a woman in a largely male business.