Back from the Canadian Produce Marketing Association convention and trade show in Vancouver, and still marveling over the excellent show and the remarkable host city.
A couple of “pro” tips, for the next time you are in Vancouver: 1. Rent a bike and take in Stanley Park in downtown Vancouver;
2. Go to a local supermarket and score some “Nanaimo bars,” a dessert bar named after the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. Our son-in-law, whose folks were born in Canada, clued us in about the tasty treat.
I heard from a grower-shipper who had some concerns about Walmart’s new Eden system, which the chain calls its “intelligent food system” that maximizes freshness.
Will the new system make it more difficult to ship to Walmart, or up the rejection rate for fresh produce suppliers? I’d like to learn more about the system, so if any readers have any insights, shoot me an email at tkarst@thepacker.com and I’ll follow up.
In any case, I asked the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group about Eden with this question
Wal Mart’s Eden system - will it do what it says?
Still getting great responses to a previous LinkedIn thread that reference the romaine and E. coli outbreak.
Crisis management during outbreaks - what can the industry do better?
Here are some recent replies, some with an international perspective:
JW Very interesting comments. As far as the question of consumer facing messaging - Wouldn’t if be great if anytime a government agency addressed the American Consumer about a particular food born illness part of the narrative was “The CDC reminds you that a diet high in fruits and vegetables is important to your health and well being”. This might help alleviate any longterm stigmas in the consumers minds to short-term problems while we as an industry continue to be addressing, correcting and preventing these outbreaks to the best of our ability.
FD As I have been in charge of marketing and communication for fresh products on the French market in a previous job, I have encountered numerous crisis such as the mad cow, dioxine, “horsegate”, salmonella outbreaks....
The best strategy we had was :
- at the beginning and during the crisis let the official authorities do the communication and repeat what they are saying
- at the end of thecrisis : repeat what had happenend and what is going to be done to avoid this.
There are few brands ororganisations that can communicate with the clients and try to protect itself from scandals or crisis moments. You just have to let the wave go over you : confirm what is official, dare to say “we do not know” and always tell the truth.
Afterwards you can start communicating on what you are doing, what you have learned, how you will avoid future problems...
MM From a grower-shipper standpoint we are getting regulated to death and we cannot pass on the expense for all the continuing regulations nickel and diming us to death. When the product leaves shipping point we don’t know how it is handled at the destination point. Is everybody certified including the trucks? Look at the kids in stores that pick up and touch produce all the time. The blame always goes to the grower shippers and that is not right.
ND Wouldn’t everyone prefer the outbreak news will begin with” We have been able to traceback the source of an outbreak and the person’s name was ...... and had worked at ..... on what day” . rather than a name of a produce for recall and all farmers have to throw all of their perfectly fine produce away because it takes weeks to find out if the food is safe?
MB: In NZL we do not do a great job of educating the public during the non-outbreak times. If we do not communicate how our systems and food assurance programs operate when things are good, is it no surprise that they are not taken seriously when things have gone bad?
Here are some quick hitter headlines that relate to the fresh produce world
Walmart retreats from its UK Asda business to hone its focus on competing with Amazon
PHILIPS ERASED FRUIT AND VEGETABLES FROM OLD MASTERS PAINTINGS TO PROMOTE ITS JUICERS
