Robinson Fresh president Michael Castagnetto talks consumer brand launch

Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Robinson Fresh has launched a consumer brand.

The company has updated its logo and created packaging for the various produce items it offers. This will be the first time in the company's history that it has offered produce under a label bearing the Robinson Fresh name.

“For 115 years we’ve delivered freshness and supply chain solutions to our customers, and we’re just really pleased that we get a chance to tell that story through our brand now, both to our retail customers and the consumer," Michael Castagnetto, president of Robinson Fresh, said in an interview for The Packer's Tip of the Iceberg Podcast.

The company's role in the produce industry has been evolving for the last decade, from product broker and transportation provider to a more integrated company that markets product directly from farms, Castagnetto said.

“Over the last 7-10 years, we’ve seen the benefits of that as we’ve built relationships with customers, but we’ve also seen the issue of having those products come across in multiple brands," Castagnetto said. "Having a single brand allows us to share the focus of what we’re trying to accomplish together, be consistent with our customers in how we represent our products on their shelves, and also to deliver on the scale that we are right now but not necessarily seeing the benefit of because it’s spread across several brands.”

The first items to hit shelves in the new Robinson Fresh brand will be those in the dry veg category — peppers, cucumbers, chiles, tomatillos and others — and greens, Castagnetto said. Throughout the first quarter and into the second quarter of the year, the new brand will also accompany the items in the company's tropical and melon categories. Ultimately, the brand will be on all commodities the company supplies.

“I think the brand design, the packaging design is really strong," Castagnetto said. "I think it really represents who we are in the marketplace and how we deliver freshness every day, and so (I’m) very excited to see how this lands on the shelves in the very near future.”

For more details on the launch, use the audio player above to hear an interview with Castagnetto from The Packer's Tip of the Iceberg Podcast.