Reimagining industry engagement

The Packer’s Tom Karst spoke in mid-May with Amanda Griffin, vice president of education and program management for the United Fresh Produce Association about the association’s Reimagine Conversations programming in June.

The 25-session Reimagine Conversations virtual event offers education and networking opportunities across five topical tracks, including food safety, marketing, supply chain, retail-foodservice and more.

The Packer: United Fresh has a full slate of virtual programing in June. Talk about the upcoming virtual events for United Fresh, particularly the Reimagine Conversations event.

Griffin:  As you know, we’re not in LA. We didn’t feel, at decision time,  that LA was going to be open.  then we tried to figure out what we could do to reimagine how we can provide an offering still, and not just have a blank moment.  We put together what seemed to work

throughout the year of COVID, and what we received positive feedback on from the membership,  which is some education content that has both the content piece, and then the interactive piece at the end of it, so folks can actually break out into those breakout rooms,  have guided discussions with hosts, and really dive into it and meet people. I  will be the first to admit nothing replaces in person. But it was a really great alternative to get folks together for June and have those conversations.

The Packer:  So that’s five tracks of content in Reimagine Conversations, right?

Griffin: We have five tracks of content and five sessions within each of those tracks.  25 sessions. We have over 60 speakers already confirmed to speak throughout the month of June. We are excited . We’ve got our hands full to get it together. But it’s coming together nicely. And we have a lot of, because of all of those individual sessions, we have a lot of opportunities for sponsors. Now one of the things of the virtual event flip this year, is that the sponsors get to be knee deep with us in the session, so they get to be a part of the breakouts. That’s been valuable on our end to have folks more dialed into the content, but then also for the sponsors to be able to get to know folks and really get their names out there for those sessions, for sure.

The Packer: You lined  up all these all these topics and speakers. How has the PMA planned merger affected what you’re doing? And are they coming aboard in any way yet? 

Griffin:  We are in a “support all” situation. All of our events that have member rates will also be (available)  for PMA members.  They will be able to have our member rates and vice versa, and  publications that are free to our members are now free to PMA members. And it is a friendly environment. We’re all going to be together from the start of next year. I think it was a good move made by both organizations to start making things accessible for everybody.

The Packer: Any ideas on the registration you expect so far for Reimagine Conversations?

Griffin:   What we found with our virtual (events) is that we have around 80 folks that will be in each of those sessions. And some topics are more popular, and we’ll get up into the hundreds and some of the sessions net out at 80. We  kind of like that number, because what it does is at the end, it dovetails into the breakout rooms and really allows for folks to interact.

The Packer: What is the cost of the event?

Griffin: It is a paid event, and you can either pay for a whole track;  let’s say you wanted to sign up for the food safety track, then you could  purchase just one track. Or you can get an all access, which will give you all the sessions for the entire month.  We have a tiered approach. But then we also have a new option, we’ve got a company all-access pricing. Essentially what that does is if a company wants to spend $10,000,  their company have access to whatever sessions they want to pop into. We are seeing some positive traction on that one,  especially from the some of the larger companies that can use it as a value-add (for) their staff .

The Packer: This is something that’s pretty ambitious. I mean, you’ve got it’s not a free event.  you’re offering some real content and a lot of programming. Is there any Expo element to it?

Griffin:  We don’t have an actual Expo element. One of the key things we heard, when trying to figure out what we were going to do,  after we figured LA was not going to be ready for us,  is to figure out if  we want to do that virtual tradeshow piece again, which we did last year. And we heard a lot of feedback that people are kind of over that. We did come up with Reimagined Innovations. What that is, for the months of June, July and August, it allows for a limited number of sessions. They are opportunities for  exhibitors to put together (sessions), so they get to own their content, and we promote it, and we also help manage it. 

So very similarly, that equation that I told you that we found works with the interactive learning, we’ll put it on, we will produce it with  them. And Reimagined Innovations sessions  are actually free to the members and nonmembers. 

We are trying very hard not to limit what the content can be (on Reimagined Innovations). A lot of folks are using it as an opportunity to roll out a new product, as they would have done in-person at convention. Some folks are talking about new partnerships they have. I do know that of a lot of the sessions that are sold, they’re currently working on their titles and descriptions when we will have them up for everybody to see.