NEW YORK — The New York Produce Show started with a breakfast and thought leader panel discussion before hundreds of industry professionals converged at round tables in the Javits Center in the heart of Manhattan.
Every leader who spoke before the panel included their condolences and thoughts about the show’s founder, Jim Prevor, who died Nov. 8.
Leaders included: Richard Ball, commissioner of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets; Marianne Santo, category manager for Wakefern Food Corp. and president of Eastern Produce Council; Phillip Grant, CEO of Hunts Point Produce Market.
“Jim would encourage us to get back to work. We’ll make him proud by making this show the best yet, for him,” Ball told the crowd. “We will keep marching on for all of you, and for Jim.”
Wendy Reinhardt Kapsak, president and CEO of Produce for Better Health Foundation and a registered dietitian nutritionist, moderated the panel chat.
Panelists were all retail-based:
• Marianne Santo, category manager for Wakefern Food Corp.
• Mary Mitchell, produce category manager at FreshDirect.
• Caitlin Tierney, senior director of produce for local and innovation at Sprouts Farmers Markets.
• Lisa Helfman, senior director of public affairs at H-E-B and founder and chairperson of Brighter Bites.
Kapsak asked the panelists about produce prescriptions and how to approach the Food is Medicine movement when produce consumption is down or stagnant.
“Is produce medicine? Yeah, but it’s food. This concept isn’t necessarily going to appeal to everyone, but it’s necessary,” Kapsak said. “These programs are providing dollars to purchase fresh product — significant federal dollars are going into these pilot programs. We’re asking more of retail.”
Helfman and the others said retailers need to avoid making produce a punishment or finger-wagging instruction. It needs to be something consumers want, rather than feel they “should” do.
“We have to do a great job as retailers to make it fun and exciting. Engage people and demystify it for them, so they try it, it tastes good and they buy it again,” Helfman said.
Mitchell said the industry needs to look at their products as shoppers themselves in order to increase consumption. In her two-member household in New York City, they’re never going to finish a whole head of cabbage at home before some of it goes bad.
“We are the consumers,” Mitchell said. “Have half a cabbage or a smaller cabbage and items that last longer.”
The trade show floor opened with a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. and microsessions began soon afterward.
