Frieda Rapoport Caplan, a food distributor who changed the look of American produce aisles and made palates more adventurous by championing enoki mushrooms, Jerusalem artichokes and other once-exotic items, died Jan. 18 at her home in Los Alamitos, CA. She was 96.

Ms. Caplan broadened the choices available to American consumers by bringing in products from South America, Australia, Asia and elsewhere and teaching retailers how to store and promote them and buyers how to prepare them.

Perhaps her best-known success involved an unloved fruit native to China, known as Chinese gooseberry. Ms. Caplan promoted it as kiwifruit, and it gradually took hold in the U.S. “It has to have taste, it has to have food value, and it has to have shelf life,” she said, explaining what she looked for in the exotic produce she championed.