Packer 25 2021 — J.M. Procacci

How did you get your start in the produce industry?

I started out in the industry when I was 10 years old. At Thanksgiving (that year), my dad came in and told me my days off were over. I started coming around to the (company’s operation in Philadelphia), doing every job, making boxes, packing tomatoes. In reality, my dad was building a business and the only way I could really spend time with my father was going to work. There wasn’t really much time off.

Every day that I had off in the summer, I ended up working. Even during college, my dad would call me to work to fill in as a salesperson on the market, when we had a void, or we needed extra help. I would have to leave St. Joseph College (now called St. Joseph University) at 3 o’clock in the morning, then come back for my class work. My college was 40 minutes away from the terminal market.

My job (during college) was to do physical inventory every Sunday morning. My dad really had a handle on me at the time; I couldn’t be out too late on a Saturday night, I had to be there 7 o’clock Sunday morning, to do physical inventory of every package that we had in all our buildings. At that time, we only had plant number one, which is our original plant at 3655 South Lawrence St. And we had the terminal market units; we had three units on one side of the market and one on the other. So, I would go and physically count every package and hand (the tally sheet) to my dad, he would stick it in some kind of notebook, and then they would cross-reference it to what we had actually in sales and deletions. Taking physical inventory would take me, depending upon how busy we were and what time of the year it was, anywhere between four hours and 10 hours.

During my career I’ve worked for several divisions of Procacci Holdings. Until 2007, my education was not very complete in the produce industry.

We are vertically integrated from the seed to the back door of a restaurant, producing product and sending it to markets all over the world.

I worked for many different divisions but most of them were in marketing, distribution and repacking until 2007, and then I decided I wasn’t going to work in the Philadelphia offices anymore. I was going to go on the road, check on all of our farms, learn about that.

My dad, starting sometime in the early 2000s, when major decisions had to be made, he would say, “Joseph, It’s no longer my business anymore. It’s yours.” Most of the strategic decisions were made by me, ultimately. Of course, I used my dad’s vision, experiences; he became more or less my consigliere rather than my boss.

How would you describe your current role?

My current role is I’m CEO of Procacci Holdings, so I have responsibilities for all of the Procacci

companies now. My role is to prepare this company for the next generation. My daughter Gabrielle is a director here now; she works in human resources, she works in risk management, and she works in communications. She does various roles — new projects, analyzations, analyze customers, analyze profitability. My dad set up this company in a succession plan that’s very Tuscan in nature. That means it has to follow his bloodline. The successor or CEO is preferably to follow his bloodline. I know a couple of my competitor friends don’t do that anymore, they have outside CEOS. But our (model) is to stay in the bloodline if possible. My successor’s already been named; my son Joseph III, he is 28 years old, but he cannot succeed (me) until he is 35 years old; the rules are you have to be 35 and with 8 years in the business; he has already got 10 years in business.

I graduated from St. Joseph’s with several disciplines. My degree is a Bachelor of Science in industrial sociology, which later became industrial relations in my school the very next year after I got my degree through the sociology department. I do have enough credits for a theology degree and also have enough credits for a business administration degree.

I took a lot of classes. I went to school day and night; I figured that was going to be my last opportunity for education.

At the time that I joined the business, my Uncle Mike had retired from what we call the Philadelphia entities.

He was still involved with some of the other growing operations with my father as one of the owners, but he didn’t want to be in this business anymore. He had other interests. So, my dad needed me. And I knew that was going to be the end of any outside aspirations I had for education, tried an MBA but couldn’t do it (with my family responsibilities). I ended up changing more diapers than I did reading books.

My role is a fiduciary custodian of this business at this point. My father said that you have to learn how to delegate. And it took me a while. I’m still very hands on. You’ll see me in the farm more than you’ll see me at this desk. You’ll see me in Mexico and California more than you’ll see me (at this desk) in Philadelphia. We have businesses there too.

What industry groups are you involved with?

I’m currently the chairman of the Florida Tomato Committee. Here I am, a kid from Philly, and I am president of the Florida Tomato Committee. I am (also) vice chairman of the Florida Tomato Exchange, which is our government advocacy group. There’s also the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. That is the third organization that I’m a board member with. (The exchange) is our co-op, which has Capper-Volstead Sherman Antitrust protection.

I’m currently on the board of the Academy of Food Marketing at St. Joseph’s University.

I’m also trustee of the pension plan for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 929.

For many years, I have served on the board of the House of Kids, which is a Ronald McDonald House in South Jersey.

For 15 years, we have run a charity called the Friends of Brian. We raised enough money to fund a chair; we pay a salary for a fellow, and that professional does pro bono cranial facial surgeries at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Over 15 years, we raised over $1.5 million (for the charity) with an annual celebrity-amateur golf tournament held here in Philadelphia.

I’m also a brother in Delta Sigma Pi, which is a professional business service fraternity. All my peers are retiring or have retired. I’m 69 years old; they’re all retiring but we still have that service model. St. Joseph University is a Jesuit university, which was a college at the time I went there.

And the motto of Jesuit education is to “be a man for others”; now we say, “be a man or woman for others.”

And also, when I sign letters to my friends from college, I signed Joseph Procacci, 1974 Delta Sigma Pi, Zeta Pi chapter and also AMDG (Ad maiorem Dei gloriam), which means for the greater glory of God.

What does leadership mean to you?

Leadership means to share my 59 years of experience with those who would want me to share.

We currently have a charity called Estrella Naciente that means Rising Star in Spanish. That is an organization that we raise money (through a golf tournament). The charity raises money for the community we serve. The community we serve is the people that we hire, and that is the Latin community. Most of the people who work for us are Latinos. And these Latinos, who have no ability to get scholarships federally, they are DACA kids (deferred action of children of immigrants or aliens). We get them junior college (tuition) and now we’re moving into four-year college tuitions.

We also give money to my other alma mater, Camden Catholic High School. We also give grants to Camden Catholic High School for tuition for kids who go there from inner city schools.

We also give tuition aid to students who are already in their second year at Camden Catholic High School whose families have run into financial difficulty, so they can continue and not have to leave school.

In the past I’ve been a Little League commissioner. I don’t know how many teams I managed, or bench managed — probably over 25 teams.

Was your dad into sports?

My dad was an ex-prizefighter. The only thing that my dad ever bought for me in sports was boxing gloves and bags. He taught me how to box.

What was the biggest lesson you learned from your dad (company founder Joseph Procacci)?

Stay in the moment. We are a market-based business. Stay in the moment and go with the market. That was one of the best things he taught me. But I had to do that, and I also I have to look down the road. I look down the road with binoculars and try and see the next thing that’s coming.

(Something) my father also taught me was that to stay still is to go in reverse. To be satisfied with the status quo is to be going in reverse.

Who are some of your industry mentors?

They are the people that work for me. The professionals that have been hired and become part of the Procacci business family. My family is my business, and my business is my family. I learn more from the people around me because I trust their knowledge. My father, of course, was a big influence in my life.

Do you think you are a lot like your father? Is your son like you?

(My father and I) tested the same in a profile examination. My son is a consummate salesperson. I made my son work hard, I made him work on the farm, get up at six o’clock in the morning and be a farmer. Because when I went to the farming business in 2007, my education was incomplete. I needed to get back on the farm, I needed to learn what was going on down there.

And so, I started my son in the farm. We have this survey that we give everybody who works for us. And my son tested high on both types of salesperson skills — those who can open the door and create a new customer, and those who can maintain the customer on a daily basis, business to business.

My father and I tested high on that, but not as high as my son. So, what I did with him was he didn’t sell a tomato, he didn’t sell anything until last year; he spent eight to nine years in the grassroots of the business, learning to grow strong in areas that I was weak in.

What’s a fun act about you?

One fun fact is that I open up every board meeting and every meeting at any entity with the saying, “I am blessed to have the most important role or job in the world; I employ people.” I get to employ people and we have offices all over, we employ over 8,000 people. That’s the greatest gift that a person could have is to be able to give someone an opportunity to make a living, feed their family and grow and prosper with their own hard work. My job is to provide all these (employees) the tools to fulfill their role in the business. My motto is “A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.” To put it in practical terms, usually if a person has a failure, it is the system that leads to failure, not the person. No one wants to fail. People just want to do their best.