Retail panel Part II: How Barons, Sprouts and Cardenas handle these produce challenges

PALM DESERT, Calif. — What do retailers, especially produce retailers, really think about all the trends and challenges of today? What's working, what's not and what do their shoppers want? What do they want from suppliers?

Hosted by The Packer and PMG, West Coast Produce Expo's “Fresh Trends at Retail” expert panel chat was moderated by Amy Sowder, editor of Produce Market Guide and retail and education editor of The Packer.

Four retail executives shared the latest consumer and shopping trends impacting fresh produce today:

• Rachel Shemirani: Senior vice president at Barons Market, San Diego, a second-generation family member running the company.
• Shawn Peery: Vice president of produce at Albertsons Cos., Boise, Idaho, who's been with the company more than 27 years.
• Shonna Williams: Vice president of produce at Cardenas Markets, Ontario, Calif.
• Caitlin Tierney: Senior director of produce for local and innovation at Sprouts Farmers Market, Phoenix.

(Below is lightly edited for clarity.)

TOPIC: Inflation’s effect on purchase behavior and retailer solutions

Williams: What I've noticed, due to the higher costs, is now people are shopping more frequently. They're going into the store, buying only what they need — especially with inflation. The trip to the store, with gas prices, can cost a little bit, so they usually go to the store closest to home. Customers are shopping more, just buying for their needs for a day or two. That's more common, especially with Cardenas Markets because our consumers are more Hispanic-driven, and so if you know the Hispanic community, they are more likely to only buy their needs for the day. So, we're seeing that trend coming back, where they’re only buying for two days and only their needs, so there's no waste.

Tierney: That’s very interesting, so you’ve got such a value-centric customer. And it's also more like the European style, too, because Europeans shop for their needs for the day. I think that is a trend we're all seeing. But for us at Sprouts, we're actually we're seeing a little bit of that same trend across the state, a slightly bigger basket. And it's more because of inflation versus units. It's a struggle right now, definitely pointing to these days. It's a challenge to get your product freshly into your stores and consolidate your loads and figure out how am I going to take this product from California to Florida. And so, what we're doing from an industry perspective, is we're trying to source more regional programs, more local programs to cut these costs so that we're not passing these costs on to our customers. For example, when there's this amazing asparagus deal out of Michigan, purple asparagus that tastes amazing, but it was a lot better, from a transportation perspective, going into versus trying to to get them from somewhere else.

Read this: 'Fresh Trends at Retail' panel reveals what your retailers are thinking

Shemirani: As of this second, inflation has not hit our produce department as hard as other departments in the store. Meats, dairy deli and grocery used to get price increases of 10 to 15 cents and now they're $1, $1.50, $2. It feels a little impossible. But after this show, I could go back to the stores, and everything will have gone up $2 dollars. The key to that is that produce really is the building block to a lot of the recipes. It's now become a staple item along with beans, lentils and rice. With produce, it's so easy to shop now because of the price. You're not getting the same sticker shock as you are for the rest of the store.

Topic: Keeping produce shelves stocked with supply chain issues

Williams: Personally, what I've seen in the stores, and I'm sure every retailer has as well, produce has been the most well-stocked department in the whole store. We have fuller shelves, less shortages. The biggest hit we just had was our Mexico shutdown at the border and having avocados. The one way to stay ahead of that is, of course, the partnerships that we have and our relationships with our vendors, which is all you guys. I appreciate you all for that. But that's how we stay stocked until we get those avocados in here. Especially when I was produce manager for well over 15 years, I've kind of stayed ahead, like almost going into the next day, just in case you had a light truck. You had a rejection, challenges of the borders, especially with a lot more stuff coming in from Mexico. I always tried to have a little buffer, so that's been the way for my team of buyers to stay at it. They keep a little bit, just in case, waiting in the back.

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