Armand Lobato

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“The last 150 feet from storeroom to display is the toughest leg.”
A good produce manager, like a shrewd chess player, must always be thinking several steps ahead when it comes to the long-term outlook.
One thing that irked me as a produce manager was when a clerk would say, “I’m going to take a break,” and their allotted 15 minutes dragged on and on.
Cut fruit programs have tremendous potential — but what I see all too often isn’t quite what retailers had in mind for this concept.
It was ugly. It was all at once curious, sad, remarkable, shocking and sobering.
As we delve ever deeper into the coronavirus COVID-19 situation, food distributors and retailers are discovering this pandemic may unfortunately be with us for at least the immediate future.
I observe the produce clerks in my neighborhood store and the profiles and demeanor are much the same. The crews go about their stocking as usual in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s time to take a break from the recent coronavirus theme dominating the news lately. I think that’s probably all right — I suspect even welcomed at this point.
The common phrase lately has to be “I’m looking forward to getting back to normal.”
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I sometimes struggle to find some ray of hope, some lesson that we may have overlooked that we might carry with us when it’s all over.