Much Has Occurred in 35 Years… Covers of PRODUCE BUSINESS Tell the Story

Having originated out of a multi-generational family produce operation, PRODUCE BUSINESS polled various other family-run produce companies to provide an inside look on their unique trials and tribulations.

PRODUCE BUSINESS goes into supermarkets every month to identifies key ways to increase sales to consumers. In this issue, we enlisted the expertise of Cornell Marketing Professor Max Brunk to dive deeply into merchandising and signage techniques that “Serve the Consumer.”

“Pesticides – Hype or Hazard” … Unabashedly, PRODUCE BUSINESS brought the debate to the floor in an open forum that received many letters to the editor.

In keeping with its goal to “Initiate Industry Improvement”, PRODUCE BUSINESS queried retailers to give us their true feelings about their relationships with suppliers

The major trend of the period, with deep ramifications affecting the future of the industry, was Home Meal Replacement. PRODUCE BUSINESS led retailers and suppliers in the discussion.

Merchandising organic produce, at the time, was something that needed to be addressed, as traditional supermarket chains wrestled with the question of integration versus segregation of organic produce.

The “Dot-Com” era of boom-or-bust platforms to buy and sell produce online was at its zenith, but we asked the question: “Can the Produce Industry Ride the Virtual Highway?”

The entire world was shaken on September 11, 2001, and PRODUCE BUSINESS reflected on the industry’s legacy of human involvement in times of conflict.

Long before Deep Discounters entered the North American retail scene, Walmart had most major supermarkets clamoring to find ways to compete, but Walmart’s produce pricing seemed to be the one area that was hard to beat.

It wasn’t the first time a big diet fad came along, but Low-Carb was a direct attack on the industry. PRODUCE BUSINESS put a retail action plan together.

Many supermarkets were well on the way to seeing more packaged produce SKU’s outpace the growth of bulk items. We looked at all the driving forces.

Direct outreach to consumers was an expensive proposition before the benefit of social media. Dole and other brands were able to bridge the gap by not only having product “placement” within movies, but they licensed and partnered their brands with big name Hollywood entertainment companies.

The nature of Private Label produce can be somewhat mysterious, as consumers are not privy to who is the actual shipper of product. This article did a deep-dive into the retail decision-making process of the selection process for choosing providers of private-label produce.

The launch of Tesco’s Fresh & Easy concept created much discussion amongst the industry, at both the retail and supplier level. Editor-in-chief Jim Prevor (aka the Perishable Pundit) led the industry in the complete analysis of Tesco’s eventual rise and fall.

Country-of-origin labeling (COOL) showed many sides of the industry’s strengths and weaknesses along the supply chain, but retailers had to comply with the new law, enacted that year to include fruits and vegetables.

Three years after the Great Spinach Crisis, produce traceability was still a subject of great discussion.

Though some supermarkets embraced the employment of dieticians, many were unaware of the tremendous impact retail dieticians could make within the produce department itself and how they could assist in sharing our unique health messaging.

Wegmans provided a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of its sustainability program in our annual PRODUCE BUSINESS Retail Sustainability Award.

The perennial quest for taste, appearance and lower cost has driven our discussion with the foodservice buying segment since the inception of PRODUCE BUSINESS. Each July cover story is always dedicated to the foodservice industry.

Adli, Lidl, Dollar General and a host of other small format stores have peppered the landscape of retail. PRODUCE BUSINESS readers wanted to know how produce fit in to their marketing, merchandising, management and procurement schemes.

Marketing to Millennials (and Generation Z) was the ‘conversation of the year’ around the network of buying executives who reached out to PRODUCE BUSINESS to encourage our cover.

Merchandising and Marketing are two pillars of the PRODUCE BUSINESS editorial mission (Management and Procurement are the other two). The “Selling by Design” article looked at the way merchandising and marketing intersect within the supermarket produce department

Still reeling from a Los Angeles Times expose on the treatment of Mexican farm workers, the industry’s Ethical Sourcing programs are still improving.

There is little doubt that consumer buying patterns are changing, but how produce fits in to the Omni-Channel Future is still being explored.

Produce is making its mark in the Plant-forward Movement, but we still have a long way to go in getting beyond the concept of meatless burgers.