PMG Industry Perspective

The Cherry on Top: Seasonal Favorite Leaves Lasting Impression

Fri, 15 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT

I was looking through some maps online when Russ T. Blade peeked out from behind my monitor. “Rusty,” as regular readers know, is the miniature, imaginary produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.

Rusty: Tracing out some Google Maps trips, are we?

Me: Yeah, looking at taking a trip somewhere now that we’re on the cusp of yet another summer. Time to, you know, see some sights and maybe do a little fishing.

Rusty: A trip that doesn’t involve a trade show or a growing area?

Me: Not any longer. Though, I do miss being on the road for those things. It was always a thrill to visit a grower or shipper to see harvests, growing areas and packing facilities.

Rusty: So, someplace like that has to come to mind right off the top of your head. Which buyer trip comes to mind?

Me: Probably the Northwest cherry trip. I went there with a group around 2005. We saw multiple growing areas in Oregon and Washington. I guess I think about that as cherries are just now coming into availability out of California.

Rusty: OK, and we all know that the Northwest deal is right on the heels of California. Seems to me that Oregon and Washington typically start in mid-June, peak in mid- to late July and wind down in early August, depending on the crop size.

Me: The Northwest cherry trip was unreal — all the beautiful rolling hills lined with cherry trees and the packing facilities, with all the rushing clean water within to move the cherries from unloading to packing; I described it as a water park for fresh cherries.

Rusty: As in, cherries get cooled, washed, sized, graded and packed with lightning speed?

Me: You got that right. In retail, cherries remain perhaps the last true seasonal commodity that helps set the produce department apart. With a limited run, fresh cherries are something that customers look forward to each year. When cherries are at peak supply, the sales per square foot are the best in the entire store. So, it pays to market and promote these gems right.

Rusty: My crew is well trained. We set up cherry displays fresh every morning: Don’t break the cold chain, display in more than one area on the sales floor and rotate faithfully. Customers are naturally going to sample the goods, so keep trash cans handy for the pits.

Me: In my trip, I especially recall how the prized yellow-blushed rainier variety was harvested: only in the early hours before the heat of the day set in, picked and immediately cooled in giant field cooling sheds. The delicate rainiers command the highest retail in the category, but wow, I consider the variety to be the best eating fruit of the year, bar none.

Rusty: That’s some compliment, considering the hundreds of produce items you have managed through the years. And all from this one buying trip?

Me: Partly, but also from stocking them year in and year out. The trip was just, you know …

Rusty: Oh, geez — the cherry on top?

Me: You walked right into that one, pal.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

Sometimes, Inspiration for Produce Ad Merchandising Just Needs a Little Push

Mon, 11 May 2026 12:37:23 GMT

I walked around a store as a specialist early one morning, going through the open back dock doors. It was a couple of hours before the store opened.

This wasn’t uncommon. As I visited store locations as a specialist, I had to get an early start, hit as many stores as I could, checking in with produce managers along the way. My job was multifaceted, sometimes hard to explain.

However, mine was indeed a support role: help the produce managers be successful, be it with merchandising, inventory control, managing their crews, training and more.

I walked through the back room; the load was still there from the overnight delivery. A familiar produce veteran was busy pulling pallets into the cooler, rotating and putting the load away. All well here, I thought.

Then I ran into an odd sight.

I found Milt, the produce manage out on the dimly lit sales floor. While the rack setup man was making good progress for store opening, Milt was sitting on a half-pallet of mixed apple varieties, staring at the empty, freshly matted display table in front of him.

Milt hadn’t noticed me when I interrupted his train of thought. “Good morning,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, hey, Armand,” Milt replied, smiling behind his thick eyeglasses. “I was, um, just uh — you know, waiting. Waiting for inspiration.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Be right back,” I said.

In many cases when a store was discovered “on fire” — or in terrible stock condition — specialists such as myself weren’t above shedding the sport coat for an apron, rolling up our sleeves to help a crew catch up. In this case, the produce department was in good shape; Milt was just faced with building his lead ad display for the week. He was stuck for ideas, which typically come from experience or from seeing other displays. After a quick detour to the deli, I bought some coffee for the crew.

“Here’s a cup of inspiration for you,” I said. I leaned up against the pallet with Milt as he continued to ponder his course of action. I could relate. I’d been there once or a thousand times myself over the years. After a few sips, I broke the silence. “Tell me what you’ve got so far.”

Milt stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I want a fall look. I have these nice bushel baskets for props. I’m thinking something simple. I’ll line up the shipper cartons to build a spillover in front of the display, then line the bushel baskets on the top layer, dummy those up to limit the amount of product. The two baskets on either side will be bulk red delicious, with the center basket being golds. That’s what I’ve got so far.”

“I like it,” I said. “Basic. Bushels always a nice farm touch. How about the back of the display? Got anything there to add some height to draw the eyes up there?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. The half-bushel stack is right there,” Milt said, pointing to the side of the table. “I can place those behind the table so it looks like the apples are pouring out. Maybe use this checkerboard tablecloth beneath to line the box tops, maybe some totes in front.”

“Nice touches,” I said. A good display draws upon the senses. Height, depth, color, color breaks, freshness, abundance — or at least the illusion of abundance. “Is that it?”

“Getting all the signing wrapped up, and just getting it all done,” Milt said.

I peeled off my sport coat. “I have a little time. Let’s do it.” In about 30 minutes, the display came together as we chatted about the latest company happenings, about what was coming up, about our families, our favorite sports teams.

Sometimes, inspiration just needs a nudge — and some coffee.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

Help Yourself: Lock in a Summer Labor Plan Now

Tue, 05 May 2026 16:55:16 GMT

As seen in a comic strip, a sign of a door read, “Procrastinators Anonymous,” with a handwritten note taped below: “Tonight’s meeting postponed. To be scheduled — eventually.”

OK, so it isn’t that funny. But it is, right?

I think about this topic every spring in the produce aisle, as summer volume looms just ahead. It’s the time of year that sparks a certain amount of excitement for most produce managers and for their crews.

It can also generate a certain amount of, well, impending doom.

After all, summer is our season. Though many produce items are available year-round, produce volume peaks in the summer. Imagine rows of melon bins parked neatly in lobby clusters or outdoors on the sidewalk. Venturing into the store, there are heaping tables of corn on the cob, peaches, nectarines, plums, sweet onions, cut fruit, grapes and berries galore, as well as increased space allocations for leafy greens for those crisp, summer salads.

The list goes on. Bright colors, tantalizing aromas — fresh produce is the star of the show.

The question at this point is this: How’s your supporting cast for the upcoming months? Are you prepared? Too many produce managers get lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to their summer labor plan needs. I’ve heard it through the years: “We’ll be staffed just fine. No need to worry.” Famous last words.

No need to worry? Most produce departments will see a substantial volume increase. That in itself is cause enough to add in a couple of clerks to the ranks.

No need to worry? I’d say to these produce managers: “Have your vacation calendar posted? Let’s see. OK, good. You’re not allowing more than one to be out at a time, but how are you planning to cover those weeks?”

Factor in all the added prep that goes into summertime volume and the extra time it takes to set up the department, to rotate everything daily, to keep up with sanitation, to keep things stocked and to handle the heavy holiday weeks.

The message always caught the produce manager flat-footed. “You need help. Now.”

While we’re still a few weeks out from Memorial Day and the onset of summer volume and of planned crew vacations, it’s time to identify and train extra hands before it’s too late. It’s late, actually, but not so late you can’t react.

Identifying a couple or more people is vital. Get with your store or district manager. Create a mock, peak summer schedule to share. Get with your produce supervisor or director. These people are key in helping find someone who is available — a self-starter, a hustler — someone trainable, if not already trained in produce.

Once identified, get the extra hands hired and on the schedule, now. Have them train with your best experienced clerks or side by side with you, the produce manager. Teach them the basics: stocking, identifying product, product handling, prep. Teach them how to list their priorities and set their time to complete tasks. Training is vital. A few weeks at minimum, but more if possible. Don’t overlook dedicated one-on-one training time.

Remember, untrained people throw money away.

Don’t assume that whoever you used in previous years will be the answer to your summertime labor needs. I’ve seen cashiers who’ve helped in the past get reclaimed by the service (front end) at the last minute. Counting on outside or seasonal help often isn’t a given either. College students you’ve used in the past get other jobs, graduate or move on without notice.

Trust your sources, but verify. Have a Plan A in place — and a backup plan too. Trust me, you want to avoid Plan B.

Otherwise, it’ll be you, the produce manager, working all those B shifts — as in, you’ll “B” there to open the store, “B” there to close up shop and “B” there when you would otherwise “B” on vacation — if you procrastinate now.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

The Cubicle Courier: One Story of Produce Life

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:45:55 GMT

Tight quarters — that’s the description I heard when asking about several produce positions I’ve had and the cramped offices occupied.

As in, “Here’s your desk. As you can see, your desk butts right up against Mark’s desk, and you’re both right next to Debby and Joe’s desk. One big happy family here, you might say. Yup. Tight quarters.”

The sales office was indeed cozy — and by design. When I had trouble locating chopper bell peppers in Florida or Georgia, Mark, who bought out of Mexico via Nogales, Ariz., waved at me, one hand covering his phone mouthpiece and holding pencil in the other hand as he said aloud, “I can get up to three loads of choppers loaded today — $8 fob work?”

And so it went, Monday through Saturday. Call it the produce broker version of the New York Stock Exchange.

Of course, with such tight working conditions, we had very few secrets between us. Between produce calls, we all knew which person’s kid was having trouble at school, which salesperson was due for a doctor checkup and so on. It was mostly business, but again, everyone knew everyone else’s business too.

It was like living in a small town, only worse.

In later years as a buyer for a larger company, I envied the bosses’ offices. They were lined up against a long running wall, all with uncluttered desktops and spotless windows overlooking the inviting, green courtyard below. Tranquil. Private.

Not us buyers. No way. We were shoehorned into what we called the Bullpen.

We had four, sometimes five people crammed together and facing away from each other against the walls, with a single escape opening on one side of the pod. Desktops were piled with paper stacks all day and half-eaten sandwiches at lunch. The walls were adorned with faded produce posters: banana and tomato ripening charts; apple and citrus variety charts. A small bulletin board was reserved to post our kids’ pictures, along with schedules of our favorite sports teams.

In the middle was a low-level bank of filing cabinets, which doubled as a central table when we had impromptu face-to-face meetings. Usually, though, we just shouted things (or obscenities) over our shoulders like, “Oh great! My Yuma lettuce truck just showed up with a frozen load — busted reefer!” or “That Santa Maria shed just turned away my truck after waiting all day for four boards of strawberries. Ahgh!”

If nothing else, the Bullpen was a good place to vent.

Sometimes, a visiting vendor would just sidle up to one of us to meet informally as we simultaneously answered phone calls and pulled truck passings (verification of loaded trucks) from the Bullpen’s centrally located fax machine. Amid all the chatter, it was like how cops say they can discern the crackling background radio traffic from the calls that pertain only to them.

It’s a sixth sense developed in tight quarters: an instinct to know how and who to tune into for relevant information.

In the midst of the controlled chaos, a coworker might poke his or her head into the Bullpen to share a joke or drop off a box of doughnuts to boost spirits — or sometimes it was a boss who called for an unplanned “mandatory” meeting in 20 minutes to squash any semblance of good cheer.

In the end, it was all about working closely with one another. Like any good team, we usually did all we could to manage the work at these produce desks, whether it be buying, dispatching trucks, quality control. You name it, we combined our efforts to keep the endless flow of fresh produce, uh, flowing — all in tight, sometimes very tight, quarters.

And if we ever needed to meet with someone confidentially? Well, that’s what the water cooler cubby area was for.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

Produce Positions I Loathed, and Why They Were Crucial to Career Growth

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:15:00 GMT

We’re used to hearing these idioms throughout our lives: “Walk it off” (for minor injuries); “Grin and bear it”; “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”; or the slightly rough, “Suck it up, buttercup,” which is a World War II aviation phrase. These all basically mean the same thing: Work through, learn from and endure the temporary setback.

In this produce scribe’s career, I had a handful of jobs along the way that I just loathed. Here are just a few that come to mind.

Wet-Rack Cleaning

As a new clerk, this was — and I suspect still is — the dirtiest job in the produce department. Every Wednesday night, I was assigned to pull the entire rack, hose down all the racks, trays, dividers and clean out all the accumulated dirt and slimy gunk beneath. Then reassemble, re-mat, scrub every inch of the display mirrors and polish all the chrome.

The store closed at 10 p.m. I was lucky to clock out by 12:30 a.m. or 1 a.m. then make it to my first-period class at 7 a.m.

Produce Broker

This was my first nonretail job in my mid-30s. I learned quickly that while the retail segment was tough, produce sales gave a job a whole new dimension of difficulty. When you have to sing for your supper (as I used to say about sales) every day, you’re always chasing volume. If I brokered (sourced, bought and sold) three trucks of produce a week, why wasn’t it five? If I sold five, why wasn’t it seven?

As our team followed produce seasons around the country, it was a daily problem-solving stress pot of finding trucks, selling, loading, unloading, dealing with rejections, inspections, fumigation; ice charges, pallet charges, cooling charges, Techrol charges; facing deadlines, malfunctioning reefers, late deliveries — and that’s just the tip of that proverbial iceberg. And it was pretty much seven days a week, to boot.

Produce Buyer

Again, not all my buyer positions were like this. However, at one retailer, the company offered just average pay, but it was coupled with a halfway decent annual bonus — which no one ever attained. Sure, I qualified for the bonus, all right, as I met all my dangling-carrot incentives. However, the boss always said the same thing at year’s end: “We just don’t have it in the budget.”

When a company commits to something so important, it’s imperative that they deliver. They didn’t, and I moved on from the short and painful chapter.

Quality Control Inspector

I was compelled to cover the dock after a round of layoffs at another company, a stark detour from my buying desk and a stretch on the cold dock and warehouse. Along the way, I learned firsthand about USDA inspections, inventory management, ripening, and so much more. No need for lunchtime exercises here, either. I must have walked 10 miles a day in that warehouse.

The Good From the Bad

The points to consider are that I could not have advanced to better jobs — and succeeded as well in any next move — had it not been for the less-than-desirable stops along the way. I compared it with the old tale of having to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.

I learned with all this compelled produce-related diversity, important things about transportation, about dealing with vendors, about grades, sizes, tolerances — the wide produce spectrum in both retail and foodservice. All the important lessons came from laboring in the trenches and doing the grunge work, one year at a time.

I hated the roles, and was often thrust into them unwillingly, yet I could not have survived without them.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

Get Schooled: Serving Produce Lessons in the Classroom

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:59:14 GMT

Bachelor survival — that was the unofficial name of Mrs. Phillips’ home economics course I took when I was a high school senior many years ago. I can’t honestly recall the exact name of the course, but the bachelor survival name is what many of us called it.

The moniker mostly fit since, as the name implies, a bunch of senior guys opted for the elective because, I admit, it was a part of our “senior slide.” It was an attractive, easy credit as school inched nearer to graduation.

A course like bachelor survival all but guaranteed that we’d have nothing but kicks and no homework. Easy.

Well, kind of. While we weren’t sweating over elongated mathematic equations, we did learn a lot of practical life skills. Things we didn’t even know would come in handy. We learned how to sew a little, using a Frostline kit to make a down vest. We touched upon budgeting and personal finance, as well as home management.

Among other units, we learned about meal planning, nutrition and, of course, meal preparation.

This meant we were tasked in our small teams to budget for, plan, shop, prepare and serve a fair number of meals. Since I was already established in my after-school produce job, much of this course actually applied.

While the class wasn’t as cerebral as my college-prep language courses, the food unit of the bachelor survival course was challenging, interesting and satisfying. The best part of all was that, indeed, we enjoyed eating the meals we planned.

Years later as a produce specialist, one part of my job was visiting college and high school nutrition and “food arts” classes — not unlike what I had experienced years later.

It was sort of like the ’70s TV series, “Welcome Back, Kotter,” right?

As a guest speaker, you might imagine that, especially at the high school level, I found the coed groups were just as antsy and just as excited as we were as the school approached graduation. Perhaps more so.

I typically supplied a few large boxes of mostly specialty produce for such talks, gleaned from the produce warehouse the same morning (as I figured everyone already knew how to identify common things such as apples or oranges).

As part of my plan, I’d call out to all the women in the class and ask how many of them would like the guy to fix dinner.

Every girl’s hand shot straight up. The guys in class suddenly became quiet, even a bit shocked. You could just read their mind: “Fix my date dinner? We thought that girls, you know, preferred muscles, stylish clothes, sporty cars, looks, boyish charms, perhaps a guy holding down a job.” I echoed their thoughts out loud.

Maybe so, I emphasized, but fix her dinner and that will impress her more than anything. And I continued — I have just the formula here to help you bozos out.

That’s when I showed them how to fix something simple like, say, stir-fry.

I showed them how to identify and break off ribs of bok choy; how to ask for a portion of napa cabbage; how to add ingredients such as mushrooms, green onions, snap peas, fresh ginger, broccoli florets, zucchini, peppers; how to add the protein (or not); and how to quickly cut, clean, season and fix the dish in practically no time. I let the students sample everything as they gathered around for the impromptu feast.

It was awesome, as the kids say these days, and consider that this was all before any chef celebrity influencers like Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, among others. It was just one old produce guy speaking to the next generation, and they loved it.

The most important bachelor lesson of all imparted? Be a gentleman — and make sure you clean up after yourself.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

Pranksters and Karma in the Produce Aisle

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:10:37 GMT

Every larger produce department has at least one. You know, the kind of squirrelly type of personality. The one who simultaneously gets on the crew’s nerves but does so in a way that people come to like them despite their annoying quirks — or perhaps it’s because of their quirks.

We had such a personality on our produce crew when I was in my late teens. His name was Don Duffield, but everyone called him by his nickname, Duffy.

Duffy was a heck of a produce clerk. He hustled, but at the same time he would pepper the rest of the store’s employees (especially his fellow produce clerks) with all sorts of random questions and comments. They were usually not serious or even thought-provoking ones. Rather, Duffy spewed his nonsensical opinions in the hope he’d get a rise out of someone.

Provoking all right. A troublemaker. But like I said, he did it with a smile, trying to liven up everyone’s day.

Duffy also liked to pull pranks on fellow employees. One annoying thing he did to me was that he would occasionally pile our plastic produce trays in the back room. These trays were used to do “the wash” as we called it — soak leafy greens in lukewarm water, then fill and transfer the filled trays to store overnight in the cooler. Like placing flowers in a vase, this helped wash away excess dirt, refresh and crisp the greens.

The annoying part? Instead of stacking the empty trays (that we also used to pull leafy greens off the wet rack at night) in multiple manageable stacks, Duffy liked to pile the trays in a single stack, very high, something like 15-20 feet high. So high that I had to track down a ladder to safely retrieve the trays some nights.

It was just another annoying ploy he liked to pull. And as he piled the trays during his early shift (using the same ladder to pull his prank), I imagine that he was giggling away like the goofy guy he was.

Even though I asked him not to do this, he thought it was funny and continued to stack away.

So, one night after working the 2-10:30 p.m. closing shift, I was naturally tired and ready to pull the leafy greens off the rack, cover the remaining 80% or so of vegetables with wet linens (this was before automatic wet rack misters) and call it a night.

I went to retrieve the dozen or so trays needed to do so and realized that Duffy had them stacked to the stratosphere, again.

While teetering on the ladder, and as I was cussing old Duffy under my breath, I heard the call echo over the PA system: “Produce, call on Line 2.” Ugh. I eased my way down the ladder, nearly tripping on my way to the phone. It was Duffy.

“Hey, pal. I have a favor to ask,” he said ever so sweetly. “I’m at a party with my wife and won’t be in at 5 a.m. to set the rack. It’ll be closer to 8 a.m. (when the store opened). Can you just leave everything up on the wet rack, and I’ll straighten it out when I get there?”

That’s when the classic angel and demon duo popped up on my shoulders. The angel side of me spoke on the phone. “Why sure, Duffy. I’ll leave the rack up for you.”

The demon on my other shoulder spoke more loudly as I hung up. “Don’t pull anything? Heh. Duffy, your comeuppance time has arrived.”

It took me a lot longer to do, but I took that towering stack of trays and pulled everything — and I mean everything — off the wet rack and wheeled it all into the cooler. It was going to take him hours to get set up the next morning.

I think I did leave a partial case of turnips on the case. You know, just because.

I only wish I could have been there the following morning when Duffy arrived at a quarter till 8 and store opening time. I always took pride in leaving the morning guy in great shape, but as he rounded the corner heading into the produce department the following morning, his jaw must have dropped.

He not only had to reset the entire case, but he had to do so in record time.

A couple of days later I ran into Duffy as I arrived for my usual closing shift, just as he was leaving. He wasn’t mad. In fact, he had the biggest grin on his face as he wagged his finger at me and said, “Heh, heh. You really got me there, bub!”

I just smiled back at him. The trickster had been pranked right back.

Bless your heart, Duffy, wherever you are. That’s karma, produce aisle style.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

Time to Reflect on a Milestone

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:03:00 GMT

I was gathering my kitchen knives (including some old produce knives) for a trip to my local hardware store when Russ T. Blade popped up from behind the counter. “Rusty,” as most regular readers know, is the miniature, imaginary produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.

Rusty: OK, I’ll bite. Running out the door with your mismatched collection of knives. Why?

Me: Just a run to get them sharpened. A dull knife, as you know, is a dangerous knife, so a couple of times each year I get them sharpened using their service all at once.

Rusty: In the produce backroom, we have one of those off-the-shelf, drag-the-blade-through-type of sharpeners. Crude, but helps to keep an edge.

Me: I remember those things. We also used a sharpening stone, though even after all these years, I haven’t the patience or skill to get the brand-new kind of edge quality on my blades that I prefer.

Rusty: The drag-through sharpeners are awful. When we had more butchers in the store, they would sharpen customers’ knives, and produce knives too, on their stones as a regular complimentary service. No longer.

Me: The important point here is staying sharp. Even as I scratch out these weekly tidbits of produce observations and muses, it helps me, you know, stay connected. Stay sharp.

Rusty: I recall having a similar conversation with you about ten years ago on a similar kind of milestone.

Me: Milestone? About keeping produce and produce knives sharp?

Rusty: No, it was about hitting the 500-column mark. That’s a lot of knives, a lot of columns and recollections about using knives for countless trimming, cutting pallet wrapping, cutting samples of fresh produce for customers.

Me: Seems like just yesterday. Ten years ago — so, that means?

Rusty: You key-tapping dunderhead. That means this column is the 1,000-column point for this, “The Produce Aisle.”

Me: Are you sure? Let me calculate that for a sec; I may need to take off my shoes so I don’t lose count.

Rusty: Trust me. It’s 1,000.

Me: When I first started, I had about three typed pages of topic ideas. I didn’t know if I’d last 20 weeks, much less going on nearly 20 years now. Seems like every time I walk through a produce department or speak to a manager, it sparks one aspect of the business that I haven’t quite covered.

Rusty: We celebrate little achievements or milestones over the course of our lives, such as our personal ones like our wedding anniversaries and our kids’ birthdays. And just about everyone can immediately recall how long they’ve been in this wacky produce business, so yeah, it’s OK to pause to reflect on the 1,000-column mark.

Me: My reminders are all around me: the business and fresh produce books on my shelf, the produce-shipper ballcaps that adorn my top shelf, even the little stitch-scars on my knuckles still visible from years of trimming.

Rusty: I imagine the few produce trim knives included in your kitchen knife sharpening run are another constant reminder. Keep produce trimmed closely, right?

Me: Definitely. Gotta stay sharp. Figuratively and, well, literally.

Rusty: A thousand columns and counting. Looking sharp to me.

Me: Thanks, pal. It’s been a privilege.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.

What’s the Best Food Value in the Produce Aisle?

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:33:30 GMT

In a single word: potatoes. (Also known as spuds, tubers or taters.) It’s timely, as we’re just wrapping up Potato Lover’s Month, which now runs from mid-January through the end of March, according to potato marketers.

So many times, when a customer peruses the produce department, looking for a healthy, satisfying and easy-to-prepare item for their families that is easy on the food budget, the obvious item that comes to mind is, well, bananas.

Banana value always comes to mind first because, let’s face it, it’s a ready-made fruit that’s easy to eat in hand. It’s common and delicious, and that price hasn’t changed much in, what, over 50 years and counting? In my market area the price is a constant 59 cents per pound. Talk about value. Bananas are in everyone’s cart.

Greatest value ever, right? Or is it?

Consider the humble potato for a moment. Potatoes are nature’s greatest gift. It is by far the leading vegetable not only in the U.S. but also in the world. Ask Russia, China, India — all massive potato producers with billions of mouths to feed.

And for good reason. Potatoes are nutrient-dense, are completely edible (zero waste) and have sustained entire civilizations throughout human history. They are low in calories, have zero fat, provide much-needed good carbs (ask any sports or health expert, we need carbs for our energy) and are loaded with vitamins and minerals — especially potassium (higher than bananas) and even high in vitamin C! That’s not to mention that they are available at reasonable prices, year-round.

But how about the value mentioned?

Take, for example, the 5-pound bag of russets in my neighborhood produce department listed at $2.79. It’s a single snapshot, I realize, but that, my fellow postharvest specialists, comes to 56 cents per pound — better than bananas — and with very little or no waste.

Now which commodity is the best value in the store, hmm?

Typically, as the bag size increases so does the value. A 10-pound bag of potatoes at one of my local stores is $4.24. That comes to 42 cents per pound.

Think fresh spuds are a pain to prepare? Hardly. In my favorite recipe, I rinse, dice (skin-on) and season about four medium potatoes, spread them evenly in a hot heavy skillet with a little olive oil, diced onions and peppers, flip once or twice until nicely caramelized, then allow to finish cooking over low heat. The whole process takes about 10 to 15 minutes, and I have leftovers for two or three meals. Easy prep, easy cleanup. A good side for any meal.

I figure that’s about 25 cents per serving. Why isn’t this message out there?

The Idaho Potato Commission has a wealth of handy information on its website www.idahopotato.com

One example is the cost per serving chart . It’s easy to use, and at a glance anyone in the food industry can see that a 100-count russet that costs $20 per carton comes to just 20 cents each, as just one example.

Like we used to say at the potato commission, potatoes aren’t cheap; they’re inexpensive.

In another handy online tool, the IPC offers a recipe cost calculator , perfect for restaurant or other foodservice operators looking for ways to offer value, formulating tasty, versatile dishes while maintaining a set profit.

This easy-to-use tool lets a chef or operator plug in a recipe using all items (not just potatoes) and generates a cost per item and serving numeric and pie chart. It’s a great visual that points out just how valuable the humble potato is and how it can be leveraged to provide desirable side dishes at a reasonable price — something desperately needed right now in an environment of sky-high menu prices and challenging customer traffic.

The IPC website offers much information for retail and foodservice, including thousands of recipes — so many ways to fix heart-healthy, delicious, nutritious, versatile potatoes.

There’s so much to offer, and yet, why does every produce operation keep this valuable category tucked away, out of sight, in the back of the department?

It is Potato Lover’s Month, after all.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

The Promise of a ‘Profitable’ Salad Bar and a Lesson in Business Honesty

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:32:11 GMT

A favorite, old-school resource I often turn to when scratching out these columns is “The Big Book of Business Quotations,” a gem that I unearthed years ago in a bookstore’s discount bargain bin, of all places.

It’s a pity to have found it there, as it’s a real treasure.

The underlying theme for this column is honesty — business honesty, to be exact. That’s probably because I recently discovered that my plumber I had used for many years had blatantly overcharged me for a job. When I called him out for it, there was no apology. No reaction of, “Oh my gosh, let me correct things.” His response was, “Yeah, well, that’s the way this business is. Take it or leave it.” I cut ties on the spot.

In fact, in the business book mentioned, I found that topics like innovation, ideas and leadership offered volumes of quotes. And honesty? Honesty quotes took up less than a single page.

I recall one year when our 66-store-strong grocery chain had an aggressive run of remodels, about five. Since another produce specialist and I worked closely to plan for and coordinate each remodel, we were very busy as these took months of preparation and weeks of intense execution and follow-up. We were swamped.

What stood out for this run of remodeled stores? Each included installing a fully staffed salad bar kiosk.

Everyone knew salad bars wouldn’t be profitable in our area, mostly due to the high labor-rate base and the fact we were committed to staying under a predetermined, lower price-per-pound. In short, it just didn’t add up. Everyone knew it. We were just being honest.

However, because the salad bar kiosks were the brainchild of our company president, we were tasked with trying to make them work, so we did all we could in the way of operational efficiency to make them profitable. Otherwise, the kiosks were doomed for the scrap heap.

For each kiosk, we carefully tracked sales and gross profit. Over many months of close monitoring, every salad bar was in the red. Each performed poorly.

That is, all but one — one kiosk showed a promising blip in the profit radar.

We were naturally suspicious. Something was amiss. “Larry,” the overly optimistic produce manager at the profitable location, attested that all was well (as in, a nothing-to-see-here type of response). His numbers certainly looked good, but our job was to find out why.

We compared notes closely with the other stores’ salad bar kiosks, and what we discovered was that Larry had obtained most of the nonproduce items (cottage cheese, olives, proteins, eggs, dressings, cheese, pudding, etc.) from various outside departments all right but had not bothered to pay for any of these goodies that customers love to pile onto their salads.

Well, heck. Anyone can show a tidy profit if you don’t include the cost of goods.

When pressed, Larry admitted: “I knew the salad bars were in the spotlight. I thought you guys wanted to see them succeed, no matter what. I was bending some rules to help make it happen.”

Of course, we all wanted a successful outcome. However, we were skeptical from the get-go that salad bars were a losing proposition, and our hypothesis was skewed by one store that wasn’t doing things right.

Larry wasn’t being honest. He reported what he thought we wanted to hear. He wasn’t disciplined for his, um, oversights, though we had every reason to do so. It wasn’t long after that that the kiosks were dismantled, the valuable floor space reclaimed for the produce departments, and in-store salad offerings shifted to the prepackaged category.

Honesty must be the bedrock of business, however uncomfortable it can be. Whether there are enough business quotes to affirm or not, managers should remain truthful and not go along with anything just to curry favor with the boss. Otherwise, we all go down the tubes together.

On a lighter note: This reminds me of the story about a desperate out-of-work teacher who applies for a job. The principal asks the applicant if he believes in creation or evolution. A quick thinker, the applicant blurts out, “Uh, I can teach it either way!” He was hired.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

More Essential Tools for Produce Managers

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:03:47 GMT

Editor’s Note: This is the final entry of a two-part series. Read the first part here .

As mentioned in this past week’s column: A few years ago, I received a very nice email from Katy, a retail produce professional who, like many of us, thinks the produce department is the jewel of a grocery store.

She asked specifically: What are the tools a produce manager should have? Here’s a portion in list form of how I responded.

While this isn’t a complete list (I can talk shop all day long), I’d say some of the more important ones are:

1) Sanitation program: I grew up in the produce business with a trim knife in one hand and a scrub brush in the other. The most efficient produce departments are also the neatest and cleanest. They have a specific cleaning program, and they stick to the plan.

I didn’t mind daily or even deep-cleaning chores, but I’ve always thought if an organization has dedicated sanitation help, why not assign them to help with produce chores such as regular case cleaning, fixture cleaning, regular store sweeps and spot-mops? I’d rather my clerks keep up with stocking and maintaining stock standards, but this isn’t always practical.

In many stores I’ve even arranged with the store manager to provide a courtesy clerk to help in the produce department on busier days (especially holidays) to dump trash, compact cardboard, fill bags and twist ties, anything to free my clerks so they could be where they were most needed: on the sales floor maintaining stock conditions.

2) Training: While tied with labor, produce managers are in a perpetual training mode. When a produce manager can assign a new or less-experienced clerk to work closer with experienced crew members (or with the produce manager), this goes a long way to developing that crew member with strong work skills, product knowledge, product handling, rotation, quality, shrink control and speed of work, along with providing firsthand demonstration of great customer service. Investing in training is a valuable and indispensable tool.

3) Technology: Does a chain or independent store have a good ordering system? I’ve seen some that are so streamlined that they help a produce manager get through this task with minimal obstacles. However, I’ve also seen ordering systems so cumbersome and so outdated that they are counterproductive and time-consuming — time that is better served managing the department.

The same thing goes with internal computer systems that help track sales or manage inventory. Such good technology tools are tied to the registers; can a produce manager easily print basic reports showing real-time department sales, percent of sales, produce pricing and quantities sold at any given time? I’ve run reports in poor-performing stores that exposed mis-rings (usually items ringing up incorrectly, out-of-season items or other discrepancies). State-of-the-art, readily available systems are a great tool.

4) Sampling program: A lot of chains have sampling teams, and I like to encourage stores and chains with such to include produce sampling in their program, especially when select fresh produce items are peak season or of general interest. From a popular or local grower — be it for mainstream, unfamiliar or specialty produce items — sampling is a great tool and investment for produce managers to spark excitement and help drive sales.

5) A regular checker-ID test is very helpful. This is such a simple thing a produce manager should do. Arrange an array of produce items on a table for checkers to ID. While many suppliers sticker their products, it still helps checkers to know the difference between red cabbage and radicchio, cilantro and flat-leaf parsley, organic versus conventional, etc. It’s also a good opportunity for a produce manager to call attention to newly arrived items that might otherwise catch checkers off-guard and prevent possible mistakes at the register. So, support of this (be it weekly or monthly) is a good practice and another good tool.

One enterprising produce manager I knew would sometimes personally sack groceries on a busy Saturday for brief periods, engaging in lively chats with customers and cashiers while he observed if the cashiers were correctly identifying and ringing up produce purchases.

6) Providing the best tools is a two-way street. Management provides tools to succeed, and it’s up to the produce manager to make the best of the support: to stay focused, organized, execute the daily plan and train and hold their clerks accountable. This maximizes sales and profit margins, keeps shrink in check and makes for happy, repeat customers.

And when it all comes together, a well-run produce department is indeed the jewel of the store.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Know the Produce Tools of the Trade

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:32:30 GMT

Editor’s Note: This is the first entry of a two-part series.

A few years ago, I received a kind and thoughtful email from Katy, a retail produce professional who, like many of us, thinks the produce department is the jewel of a grocery store.

One question that she asked specifically: What are the tools a produce manager should have?

A great question. Here’s a portion of my response.

While this isn’t a complete list (I can talk shop all day long and this is, at best, brainstorming), I’d say some of the more important tools are:

1) Have a strong history of training and development before the person managing the produce department even assumes the role. This means allowing yourself plenty of time, training and experience in all phases of managing the department, from initial stocking basics to safety, merchandising, ordering, scheduling, product knowledge and the ability to train others. The traditional path of clerk to assistant produce manager to produce manager is sound, tried and true.

2) Provide consistent produce quality, using regular, reputable suppliers. This ensures consistency in variety, sizing and availability.

3) While typically outside a produce manager’s control, provide a strong promotional program. This is a huge benefit, as good timing and attractive ads help get shoppers in the store.

4) Merchandising control: If a store has an outstanding produce manager, I’ve always believed in using their talent and creativity to merchandise as they see fit. This not only maximizes produce sales but builds confidence in the manager and empowers them to try new or different ideas.

A set schematic provided from a distant home office is all right for lesser-skilled produce managers, in some instances, but I say if you have a merchandising superstar, turn them loose and see what happens.

5) Have room to prep and room to merchandise. Produce is a bulk business, so ample space to receive, store, prep and display produce is another key tool for success. Smooth productivity is vital.

6) Attain durable and practical fixtures. While the produce itself is the star of the show, another great support tool area is having high-quality, durable fixtures (dry and refrigerated) that are easy to stock, move, rearrange and clean.

Most prefer simple, yet creative options in fixtures such as pullout front drawers, casters on freestanding fixtures for ease of mobility, easy-drain features, inserts for secondary or tie-in items and provisions for lighting, signing, etc.

7) A superior signing program goes a long way with produce managers. This tool — signing being the silent salesperson — can make a manager’s life much easier especially if it is high-quality, durable, easily organized (some come with their own cart to maneuver around the sales floor facilitating price changes), with attractive frames, stands and parts that are readily available for reorder.

8) Labor control: This is touted by senior management as the single controllable expense, and rightly so. However, many produce managers say they’re understaffed and underscheduled. This will always be the case, I suspect.

However, the best store managers I’ve had at least gave me the opportunity to infuse the hours I thought I needed, with the caveat that the additional labor spent is justified with increased sales and profit margin to match. So, it was up to me to be organized and wise with this infusion, and it helped forge a strong relationship with my store manager so that when I saw other opportunities, like promoting during local chili-roasting season or participating in display contests, we worked out how to support additional marketing plans.

9) Marketing placement tools, such as participating and having a voice when planning new or remodeled stores, so that the produce department visibility is optimal or the department has easy access to backroom and prep areas.

Perhaps identify and claim available space in lobby or expanded covered sidewalk area for outdoor marketing events and seasonal bulk merchandising, or select lighting options that are expandable, adjustable and easy to replace and reorder, for just a few examples.

10) All the “extra” tools mean so much, such as providing a produce department with a good misting system, hose spigots in coolers and attaining high-quality equipment, from pallet jacks to overwrap machines to heavy-duty stock carts and more.

11) Obstacles to optimal productivity? These are the counter-tools, which come in many forms, such as having to daily squeegee standing water to a drain placed uphill, poorly lit coolers, poor phone placement and a dozen other things. Providing everything from easy-to-use dock plates to heavy-duty brooms all helps streamline efforts, which ultimately helps maximize sales, keeps shrink in check and boosts gross profit.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Sensational Headlines Can Reach the Produce Aisle, Too

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:02:01 GMT

It always happens when the boss is out of town.

It was the early ’90s, and as a produce specialist, my job was multifaceted. On any given day, I made (mostly) unannounced visits to any of the dozens of stores in my territory. I’d check for everything: standards, ad compliance, labor conditions, stock conditions, program compliance.

In short, I was one of the “they” players in produce managers’ minds when, as they worked, they’d say to themselves, “I better do this the right way, because you never know, ‘they’ might be in to check.”

It was an ongoing, mostly rewarding job — except when someone threw you a curve.

In my case one day, I stopped at our warehouse briefly when our director was out of town. The four buyers for our 66-store chain were great, always casual in their jeans and demeanor. Just when I was about to leave for more store visits, Keith, one of the buyers, stuck his head out of the shared office and waved me down.

He said I had to go to store No. 1 to be there in an hour to talk to a local TV news contact.

I shook my head and smiled. Another ploy from these tricksters, I thought. “OK,” I said suspiciously. “What’s up?”

Keith spoke for the buying team: “You know about the problems with the head lettuce down in Yuma, [Ariz.], right?”

I was aware and knew at once this was no joke. In the past week, weather and flooding had washed out or closed key bridges in certain winter desert growing regions, forcing logistics problems and with it, a temporary head lettuce shortage.

“So, what does the news want from us?” I asked. “Didn’t you tell them? It’s just one SKU, and from what I’ve heard, it’ll be remedied in no time. Look, we’ve already instructed the stores to cut down the head lettuce facings. There’s plenty of leafy greens, spinach and cabbage. The average customer probably doesn’t realize there’s an issue. Besides, you guys know way more about this than I do. Why don’t one of you go?”

Keith motioned to his casual attire. “You’ve got the coat and tie, bub. You’re elected.”

Great, I thought. So, I hustled over the busy downtown store location after calling the store’s produce manager to give him a heads-up. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “We’re closest to the news station, so we’re used to seeing those guys on occasion. We’re in good shape.”

When I arrived, a TV news van was already parked out front. “Really?” I thought. “A temporary gap in head lettuce supply? Must be a slow news day.”

The only coaching I had from the buyers was that in fact, the gap was brief, bridges were expected to reopen in the next day or so, and we had lots of other vegetables on hand for salads. Nervous, I rehearsed these facts in my mind. I wasn’t used to being in front of cameras.

The cameraman, er, photojournalist got into position, and in front of the wet rack, I spoke to the reporter, who was very professional and pleasant and got right to the points I rehearsed. We were done in less than 20 minutes.

My wife called me later that afternoon. “I saw you on the news,” she said. “Is there really a disastrous lettuce shortage?”

“Ugh. Well, not in so many words,” I said. Sometimes news outlets like to take a page 20 story and elevate it to a front-page headline — as in, “World in Turmoil” when it’s a slow day and the media is trying to generate interest. It happens, and it happened that day as well.

What I had explained about the head lettuce shortage being temporary and the fact that we had lots of salad alternatives on hand were edited out. The story led with the equivalent of “Vegetable World in Turmoil,” with only a few, select comments intact. Ugh.

I remembered the same reporter had cooked up a somewhat contrived story the summer before on scene in my own neighborhood, reporting about some shocking flooding going on after an afternoon thunderstorm. I peered at the well-flooded background during the report on screen, skeptical as my rolling-hills suburban area is not prone to flooding. “Hmm,” I thought. “Why, she’s at the (flat, low-lying) softball fields. Nobody lives near the softball fields!”

Journalists. We all have our moments, I suppose. Film at 11.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Why Soft Openings Steal the Shine from Grand Openings

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 14:32:13 GMT

Will Rogers once said, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”

At least, the saying is attributed to the late humorous and social commentator, along with a host of others. I am alluding to this famous tidbit of wisdom in the aftermath of my previous column when I talked about the importance of precise ordering, especially for a grand opening event in the produce aisle.

When a grand opening is ready — and I mean really ready — there isn’t a detail out of place. Every inch of the produce department is squeaky-clean. Every display is thoughtfully hand-stacked so that the blush of every produce item is faced toward the customer; every sign is accurate, eye level and straight; and every leafy green has what looks like spring morning dew dripping off neatly trimmed, crisp leaves.

Everything is just perfect and awaiting the wanting public to experience the glorious first impressions awaiting every step into produce nirvana.

Except that it is — when it isn’t so impressive. That can happen with what chains call a “soft opening.”

Yuck. The very words still make me cringe. I had to work through a few of these soft openings as a supervisor at one misguided chain in the mid-1990s.

To explain, a soft opening is quietly opening a chain store for business, before the big, actual grand opening date. It has good enough intentions. A soft opening is without fanfare, with the hope that everything is operating up to snuff such as cash registers all working or newly trained employees are used to managing any snafus, that sort of thing, all before the full-court press and pressure of a grand opening’s heavy traffic.

A soft opening gives a store a chance to iron out any bugs, I was told.

Well, bully. Meanwhile the produce department, the star of any big grocery chain operation, is getting shopped. Hard. Sometimes the soft opening lasts only a few days or a week, but that’s all it takes for a perishable department to lose that special edge it started with.

In this produce scribe’s humble opinion, a store should be ready for the actual grand opening from the start. None of that soft-opening, on-and-off stress. A soft opening may help with a hard-line-based retail operation, but it’s counterproductive for a chain packed with perishable departments.

When a store offers a quiet soft opening, the produce department has to double or triple efforts to make everything look like it’s supposed to for the official grand opening. This typically means an entire set team has to work at least overnight resetting every display. It means recleaning, rotating, culling and detailing every display and every item. When it’s all finished, sure it looks good — and many times, really good — but grand opening good?

Sorry. Even with the best efforts, that ship has already sailed.

A soft opening is like taking a showroom-new sports car for a long drive with your sweaty brother-in-law along, making detours through fast-food places along the route, then throw in a rainstorm or two before running through one of those sandblaster car washes and expecting the car to pass as new.

It’s new, all right. But dealership, new-car smell, feel and look new? No way.

That’s how it is for a fresh produce grand opening, too. Get the store’s bugs fixed ahead of time and ditch the soft opening. Do it great, do it in style, but make that big first impression — once.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Precision Over Panic: Ordering Strategies for a Successful Grand Opening

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:58:29 GMT

I was thumbing through an old produce training manual when Russ T. Blade peeked out from behind the cover. “Rusty,” as regular readers know, is the miniature, imaginary produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.

Rusty: Looking for a study point in that thick binder, are you?

Me: Huh? Oh, I’m just pondering about something that occurred to me lately regarding how we used to manage the produce department’s initial ordering plan for a new store or remodel grand opening.

Rusty: How is ordering for a new store any different than what someone orders on a daily basis?

Me: The difference is in the precision. Imagine you and me working together on a grand reopening. We’ve gone through all the fixture layouts and how many linear feet are available in the department.

We’ve merchandised on paper exactly where everything is going, the volume needs, what the weekly ad items are, the projected volume and pricing, and what the grand opening special ad items are — all the way down to space allocations on secondary displays, dry item displays and, of course, the wet rack. (You know what it’s like; you have to actually work and experience this fresh produce life for years to even begin to know anything about it.)

Rusty: I get it. We’ve got our merchandising map all carefully laid out. Suppose the warehouse is limited or temporarily out of something?

Me: Knowing what we do, we assume we can get most everything in the order guide and that we are also familiar with all current seasonal items.

Rusty: So, we just order for the plan. Doesn’t sound that hard to me.

Me: You would think so, but I have seen total chaos at many new store openings in the past due to panic or uncertainty, which leads to overordering. Imagine: pallets of specialty items no one planned for, too much of some items and not enough of others. Especially when you receive everything all in one day, the pallets wind up staged all over the department and your crew is confused and disorganized.

Yeah, it can be a disaster in terms of poor preparation, misallocated labor, breaking the cold chain and more.

Rusty: Again, we just order what we need. Nothing extra.

Me: Ah, but that’s just it. We need to order to set up the displays in a planned sequence. Meaning we make and follow an action plan ahead of time so that our first order received, say, five days from grand opening has only table mats, supplies, crisping tubs, carts and plastic shopping bags. Order only what’s needed to prepare the fixtures.

Rusty: I get it. We’re on an as-needed ordering schedule, and we schedule labor to match.

Me: Exactly. So, the next day or so we only bring in the hardier items — apples, citrus, onions, potatoes, jar items, dried fruit, dry mix packs — and set up those tables with just enough product to fill the display to our desired width and height.

Rusty: I’m liking this. I prefer full front-end displays and little to no backstock.

Me: No backstock at all is the goal. Most new store openings get fouled up with wasted, neglected product and labor when overzealous orders block coolers, hallways and prep areas.
Instead, we time our orders so that the more perishable orders arrive no more than two days prior to grand opening. That gives us time to break down, crisp, prep and assess quantities, out-of-stocks, quality and culling. It also gives us a one-day cushion inbound order just prior to grand opening for any last-minute adjustments.

Rusty: Again, initially the goal is to have a gorgeous, fully stocked produce department and no backstock.

Me: Right. From then on, your orders should follow the same method. Be aggressive, anticipating maximum sales, but have the discipline to hold off ordering excess merchandise. Trust your gut and years of experience. Strive for one realistic-sized load every day throughout the first week of grand opening so every load can be properly handled and rotated, as well as so you and your crew can maneuver and work to maintain inventory, stock conditions and quality standards.

Rusty: I get it. Then after the first week, we can revert to whatever order and receiving schedule we’ll have on a regular basis beyond that.

Me: Keep that first goal in mind, so that whenever each subsequent delivery arrives, your displays are full, but your backroom and cooler spaces are as empty as possible. High inventory turns, my boy.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Signage That Speaks to Customers: 10 Essential Rules for Produce Retail

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 19:49:49 GMT

Signing in the produce aisle? It’s a big deal.

How big? I like to compare the signing component of a produce department to a goaltender in ice hockey. Some think the goalie’s role isn’t so vital, until it’s game time. Similarly, produce department signing, like the netminder, is pretty darn important. Signs convey vital information for sales, including value, price, nutrition and more.

Signing is so important that at one chain I worked for, one of the first things we did whenever we set up a new store was designate the sign person. That someone was usually in produce management or a seasoned veteran.

We also installed the signs according to our merchandising plan, long before we built a single display. After the department was set up, we went through the signs again in a final walk-through for any adjustments. Signing is a big job, and it’s best to give it plenty of attention, whether it’s for a new store set or as part of the weekly to-do list.

In short, signing is a priority. So much so that I’ve put this list together.

Ten Commandments of Retail Produce Signing

Thou shalt have a good-quality, complete sign kit for your store. If it is old and dated, consider replacing the kit.
Thou shalt assign no more than two people to manage your sign kit. Sign kits come with hundreds of parts. Assign and train your most organized clerk to manage the kit and hold them accountable. The fewer people handling the kit, the better.
Thou shalt keep your sign kit impeccably organized and stocked with an ample amount of sign frames, headers, numbers and symbols. Signs, frames, track systems and other parts get damaged, mishandled or lost. Order replacement components as needed to keep your kit stocked and in top shape. If your sign kit doesn’t come so equipped, organize it using any convenient series of trays, drawers and compartments to keep everything neat and separated; then label for quick and easy reference. Ideally, mount the kit on a single, Rubbermaid-type wheeled cart and dedicate it for such use and for easy mobility.
Thou shalt keep your signs and sign kit clean, clutter-free and stored in a safe area when not in use. Everything gets bumped and knocked around in the backroom or on the sales floor. Ensure your sign kit doesn’t become a casualty of neglect.
Thou shalt know thy sign protocols and keep consistent with your chain’s guidelines. For example, consider signing, using a correct ID header such as: Cucumbers - 3 For $1. Easy enough, right? (Not 3 ea. For 1.00, or $3 for $1ea or similar nonsensical combinations.) All your signs must be consistent, such as $1.49/LB, $1.49/EA, 5LB Bag $1.99. Be sure to accurately match whether the product is organic or conventional, and if used, tag using the correct country of origin.
Thou shalt match the size of the sign to the size of the display. A large or spillover display needs a matching large sign. Small tray of a specialty item? Attach a small sign to match for easy reference and identification.
Thou shalt generate any necessary paper signs ahead of time for ad displays, lobby displays or special features. A store typically has a scan or pricing coordinator, someone who is assigned to supplying supplemental or ad paper signs for everything in a store. Avoid the last-minute rush of other departments by ensuring your signing-needs list is in their hands at least two days in advance. Ensure additional UPC or traditional shelf tags are ready as well for any dip mixes, dressings, jar products, etc.
Thou shalt anticipate and make multiple paper ad signs for duplicate displays or maintenance. Paper signs get wet, torn or fade. After proofing for accuracy, ensure you have extras on hand of each so the sign can be quickly replaced as needed.
Thou shalt walk the department once or even twice daily, focusing on signs and making sure that every item has a sign and every sign is neat, centered, at the desired eye level, level and accurate. Mistakes happen — displays get moved, signs are overlooked — but an early walk-through helps keep your sign program in check.
Thou shalt consider the signing task of your department as highly as any other critical point. Yes, equally as important as ordering, rotation and sanitation.

I’m sure I’ve missed a point (or several), but you get the gist: Managing the signing in your produce department can be efficient and organized or it can cost you time and labor hours, and with these, your sales and gross profit. It’s best to get organized, stay organized and above all, take extra good care of that sign kit.

Signs are known as the “silent salesmen.” Make sure your “salesman” speaks your customer’s language.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Does Your Process Drive Sales or Drive Customers Away?

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:02:35 GMT

While I was a produce specialist, I once spent a day visiting stores with a district manager, or DM.

As someone in charge of up to 15 high-volume stores, the DM’s word carried a lot of weight. One of the stores we visited was going through a major remodel, and the store remained open for business through most of the process.

This is a difficult way to manage a remodel, as it involves torn up flooring, tradespeople all over the place, frequently rearranged products and pallets of merchandise in aisles — a real mess that made it difficult to shop.

One clear message the DM conveyed to managers and employees was: “I don’t want a single customer inconvenienced.”

That’s a great attitude to have, isn’t it? Sure, the DM showed concern for the remodel, its progress, staying on schedule, on budget and more — all critical points — but nothing should ever be so important that you lose sight of who’s ultimately paying the tab: the customer.

As a produce buyer at a foodservice distributor many years later, I always remembered the DM and his customer focus. I viewed the salespeople in our organization as my internal customers, especially when managing countless calls for same-day, specialty produce orders. These orders had an early afternoon cutoff, as the local Coosemans vendor needed time to ship the items to our warehouse for a JIT, which is a just-in-time delivery for shipment that same night. Some days the special orders list was quite long, but we managed to fill most of what the customers wanted.

Routines are interrupted. It happens. At a later point, I was reassigned to help in the warehouse as a produce quality inspector.

As a result, my special-order duties were picked up by another buyer who personally disliked being bothered with the numerous, special-order phone calls. He abruptly demanded that the salespeople stop calling and instead email him their special orders. On the surface, I thought that this was a reasonable alternative and perhaps a more effective way to manage the daunting chore.

It was, but it wasn’t.

Since this method took extended time to dig out a laptop to email the orders (This was years before smartphones.), most salespeople found it difficult to send in the special orders in time for the cutoff, delaying the customer orders for at least a day — or not sending them at all. The result? Fewer orders came in, meaning poor service, less produce volume for the company and more business for the competition, who still accepted phone-in orders.

The buyer made things convenient for himself but harder for the salespeople (his internal customers) and more difficult for the end-user customer too.

The fresh produce business is like any other: Provide product and service for your customers in the easiest manner possible. This can range from making the ordering software user-friendly to picking up a phone to physically removing barriers such as not blocking aisles in the produce department, all so your customer can easily maneuver, shop and reach whatever they desire.

Adjusting a work model as seamlessly for yourself certainly makes sense, however, consider what you do and how it affects your customers. Make everything as convenient as possible for them, or it’s all for naught.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

SNAP Restrictions for Value-Added Produce: Where Do We Draw the Line?

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:05:53 GMT

Waste, fraud and abuse. Those words are front and center, it seems, now more than ever. That’s particularly in the wake of stories highlighting USDA efforts to reduce possible waste, fraud and abuse in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as gleaned from just one headline.

That’s especially considering YouTuber Nick Shirley, whose independent investigation has shined a white-hot spotlight regarding an alleged daycare fraud scheme in Minnesota.

It reminds me of what the late senator Everett Dirksen famously said about wasteful spending in 1969: “A billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

Closer to home in the grocery business, we eye every cent. In fact, we used to say that our chain was so tight that the only reason anyone turned loose of a nickel was to get a better grip. Grocers operate on thin margins that ranged from 1 cent to 3 cents on each sales dollar.

So, it comes as no surprise that there’s now discussion of how SNAP benefits should apply to some fresh produce purchases. In recent articles, questions are raised such as: Should the benefits allow for, say, prepackaged salads that come with plastic utensils? What about pre-cut fruit?

One thing is certain: These products make up a lot of produce offerings these days. The question in point is: Should value-added items be allowed for SNAP purchases, especially considering that grocers in many regions sell large amounts of this category, including the less affluent base?

Like my dad used to say: “God must love poor people. He made so many of them.”

And to what extent is the governance of fresh food choices, even for raw products? Consider that not so long ago, white potatoes were banned from purchases under the federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC, (overturned in 2015) because some argued that customers would only heap piles of butter and cheese atop loaded spuds, negating the nutrition benefit. Got it. Like someone couldn’t do the same with lettuce, smothering it with a jar of blue cheese dressing? Yum. Guilty as charged.

One thing is for sure, no matter the oversight or intent, you can’t legislate common sense.

The way I see it, fresh fruit and vegetables are a natural, nutritional benefit. A packaged salad, with or without added ingredients, or a container of pre-cut fruit may be considered value-added but is a far cry from a box of cookies or a no-nutrition value pack of soda. Should value-added be disallowed because they command a higher price point? If that’s the case, would SNAP likewise deny other value-added choices such as individual size cans of peas or corn? Those have a premium markup as well, you know.

I view value-added produce as a practical way to get nutrient-dense food into the hands of smaller families, to singles and to seniors who otherwise might be reluctant to purchase fresh produce or who are less able to prepare meals on their own.

But what about the loopholes, the potential for waste, abuse and fraud? Humans being who they are. it seems, will always find some loophole. My folks came from a small town that had a sizable percentage using (then-called) food stamps. My dad once motioned me over after a long day of baling hay, pointing to a little store on the corner. “See that guy loading cases of beer?” He asked.

“Yeah, so what?” I said.

“It’s Sunday.” He said. “Can’t sell beer on Sundays. I’ve seen those transactions up close. And you sure aren’t supposed to buy beer and shotgun shells with food stamps. That shopkeeper fixes it so these people can.” He said, shaking his head.

A few dollars here, a few dollars there … .

As odd, even comical, as that scene was, it just shows what lengths some people will go to, in order to game the system. Especially in areas with little or no oversight. Especially when people can figure out how to bend the rules to gain financially and waste tax dollars.

So, I suppose it only makes sense for oversight-type people to question whether or not a plastic fork in a value-added salad should be allowed as a SNAP purchase; as one Bible verse (Matthew 10:16) states: “I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” It only makes sense to be as generous as possible with SNAP, including value-added produce so that fresh produce reaches the intended, the less fortunate among us, as well as making sense for ag producers to move more fresh produce as a whole.

Trust, but verify. As goes a saying popularized by Mark Twain: “Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.”

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

A Look Back at Life on the Long and Winding Road

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:17:37 GMT

I was cleaning out a drawer of old computer cables when Russ T. Blade peeked from behind my monitor. Rusty, as most readers know, is the miniature, imaginary produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.

Rusty: Time to sort through the junk drawer, huh? Moving out or just killing time?

Me: Huh? Oh, yeah. The last week of the year is a great time to get organized, take inventory of what to keep and what to pitch. With my career in the rearview mirror now, there’s only a few remnants to sort through.

Rusty: Cords and cables spur memories of a produce career?

Me: Sort of. I put my old briefcase in the donation pile for example. That followed me all over the country. In and out of countless overhead airplane compartments and in many hotel lobbies as I stayed up nights working.

Rusty: Probably used it as a footrest too, I bet.

Me: Yeah. When you travel a lot, as many in the produce world do, you discover what tools are essential. Or not.

Rusty: Your co-workers used to tease you good-naturedly about what a cheapskate you were on the road to save on your per diem.

Me: Make no mistake. It’s tough being away from family, but it’s a living. I preferred to stay at a Residence Inn or Staybridge Suites because the rooms had kitchenettes. I liked to fix my dinner on the road whenever possible. That’s just being frugal. And I’m not such a bad cook, by the way.

Rusty: There’s nothing like traveling to widen a produce person’s education.

Me: True. Every stop along the road has its story. I especially liked hotels that catered to working stiffs like me, which offered evening socials on Mondays through Wednesdays. These offered free food like a salad bar, nachos, tacos — lighter fare like this — and, of course, complimentary wine and beer.

Rusty: You were a cheapskate. Hotel taco night? Did those have real meat or sawdust filling?

Me: Uh-huh. Well, at least hotel breakfasts are usually acceptable. What I liked about the evening socials was meeting other business travelers. Sometimes we’d sit around and shoot the breeze over a bottle of suds or two. It reminded me of traveling salesmen I read about from the old days.

Rusty: What, like stagecoach days? Ha. You are old!

Me: More like the days when sales types traveled via railroad. They often gathered at familiar hotels along their routes, warming themselves around a potbellied stove in the lobby. They were a tight-knit group, all trying to make a buck on the road. They had colorful phrases — like when something mechanical got stuck, it was, “tighter than a Pullman window” — or shared clever phrases from ideas in meetings such as, “Let’s run that up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it.”

Rusty: In the little bit of traveling today, I’ve overheard businesspeople yapping in language all their own, all right.

Me: Many people I chatted with on the road worked in sales or transportation. One did nothing but deliver equipment to pizza chains, another worked solely on installing those giant wind turbines. There I was, marketing potatoes. Must have seemed mundane, by comparison, but I enjoyed it.

Rusty: Someone has to peddle produce around the country.

Me: I recall reading about the old-timers who gathered in hotel parlors, over a swig or two of their favorite libations, describing how they could coax a few more shaves from a dull razor by rubbing the edge on the inside of a glass or how they referred to their expense reports as “swindle sheets.”One older guy I met said that, going back farther, travelers had to pack their own towels and soap, as many hotels didn’t provide these things. Imagine.

Rusty: Still think much about those days? The flight issues, the rental cars and traffic, the endless meetings, presentations, trade events and the musty-smelling hotel rooms?

Me: Sometimes. I especially remember the long, solitary windshield time on the road. I do miss all the people I met with from all the produce companies, as well as all the diverse roadies like me who occasionally sat together in lobbies on freezing nights or during those pleasant summer evenings on hotel patios. There was a kinship there.

Rusty: Now those memories are reduced to a handful of cords, relics in your bottom desk drawer.

Me: And somewhere out there on the road, some produce person is calling it quits. Or just starting out.

Rusty: Raise a glass to the past.

Me: And another to the future.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Check Out a Free Source for Valuable Insight on Potatoes

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:06:42 GMT

“This is a wonderful book. You really have to read it!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that statement. Sometimes it happens after a speaker wraps up at a function when they’re hawking their book in in the back of the room. (At a reasonable price, of course.)

Other times it is at business gatherings. At the International Fresh Produce Association’s annual Global Produce and Floral Show, for example, I ran into at least one (or several) acquaintances in conversations who brought up their latest inspiration, something they’re pushing me to read. (And buy first, of course.) It’s an awkward moment, isn’t it? Many times, the quality falls flat.

Well, friends and neighbors, I have a gem of a fresh produce book to recommend — for free.

It was written by my previous boss, friend and mentor at the Idaho Potato Commission, Don Odiorne. He was the vice president in charge of foodservice there for 30 years. In his role, Don came up with numerous creative marketing ideas to help promote the multibillion-dollar Idaho potato crop each year. Quite the daunting challenge.

While I worked for him, Don unveiled a book, or booklet, that he wrote: “The Idaho Potato Commission Foodservice Toolkit.” It is safe to say that this work ranks up high among Don’s many achievements. That in itself is saying something.

Don gave each of his three promotion directors (aka field guys), such as myself, a modest supply to use and distribute to foodservice industry members that we met with regularly. The book was a smash hit.

It’s not a long read. In fact, I read most of it for the first time on a plane while traveling for work from Denver to Seattle. I knew instantly that it was going to resonate as a valuable resource for chefs, produce buyers, specialists, restaurants, inspectors, merchandisers, produce directors, dietitians, culinary teachers, their students, and, of course, with fresh produce nerds far and wide.

It’s everything you wanted to know about potatoes but were afraid to ask.

Don was modest about “The Idaho Potato Commission Foodservice Toolkit” he worked on for years that he researched, wrote and produced. He once told me that the information within was a compilation gathered from all the Idaho growers, shippers and others in the Idaho Potato Commission who had preceded him.

Perhaps, but no one had put it all together before in such a concise and carefully crafted book. Don did just that.

The book is just 72 pages long. Don organized it so the reader can lean back and learn all about the potato’s humble origins from what is present day. The history within includes describes how American horticulturist Luther Burbank traipsed all over the country in the late 1800s until he ended up in Idaho’s rich farmland to cultivate his signature, high-solid, low moisture russet burbank variety.

The book shows key growing areas for the gem state’s multitude of varieties; includes a behind-the-scenes look at proper potato storage and a problem-solving chapter; explains basic potato food science and preparation techniques; breaks down potatoes into cost per serving and a whole lot more with text, charts and photos within. Included in the book is a link for Don’s own Dr. Potato feature , in which he offers an extensive Q&A section (and is still active on the IPC website) for people to ask potato-related questions.

To date, there are nearly 1,000 Dr. Potato posts with answers.

Why is such a potato foodservice toolkit publication relevant, you might ask? Because potatoes happen to be the No. 1 vegetable in volume in the U.S. and the world. Potatoes are nutrient-dense, low in calories, contain zero fat and have sustained entire civilizations throughout human history. Potatoes are also pocketbook-friendly, often costing less per pound than even bananas.

Yeah, you might say potatoes are an important crop worth knowing something about.

Not to mention that the humble spud is pretty darn tasty. Chefs are a creative bunch, and good and simple food preparation never goes out of style. The IPC website has thousands of recipes to choose from , along with many helpful charts and videos.

I can’t say enough about Don Odiorne as an author. Some people (like yours truly) have to work in the craft, to “get the words right,” as Hemingway once said. Near-flawless writing comes naturally to Don. The foodservice book is so organized, so well written and is loaded with valuable tips and details.

I also can’t say enough about Don as a person. Now retired, Don was a rare type of boss: always so kind and considerate with everyone. Don shared many interesting foodie stories over the years and, best of all, is still a close friend. The foodservice toolkit can be downloaded for free .

So, if you only read one produce-related book in the near future, treat yourself to this one. If you have anything to do with fresh produce, in the retail or foodservice world, or know someone who is, it is a must-read item. The IPC also has complementary printed versions available from your friendly Idaho potato representative. In the produce (and potato) world, it’s the gold standard.

No produce bookshelf is complete without a copy.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

'Almost' Doesn't Cut It for Produce Leadership

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 14:03:52 GMT

Some things you just can’t fake, especially in the produce aisle. You’re either a seasoned produce person or you’re not. There’s not much in between.

Like all professions, it takes time. You must have “the whiskers,” as one favorite store manager used to say regarding someone with experience, if you plan on applying for a choice assignment, such as a produce buyer, quality inspector, supervisor/specialist or even as a produce manager for a new or flagship-caliber store. There’s too much risk at stake.

In short, you have to have all your ducks in a row.

I was reminded of this recently when speaking with my son, who helps manage multimillion-dollar construction projects. He was a little annoyed because the company he works for hired someone for an elevated position with questionable credentials.

The individual was described as a promising hire, as he was “almost” an engineer.

“I should seek out a better-caliber men’s-league hockey team,” my son said. “After all, with this kind of logic you might say that I’m ‘almost’ an NHL goaltender.”

As time went on with the construction project, the new hire was summarily exposed: The “almost engineer” couldn’t read blueprints, couldn’t handle subcontractors on the job. Heck, he couldn’t even read a tape measure.

Well, he almost could, my son admitted.

It also made me think about a time within our grocery chain when the company decided it needed to infuse the stores with formally educated managers. So, they hired a slew of recent college grads (with no grocery store experience) to serve as instant assistant store managers (in addition to the store assistants already employed). Very few stuck around.

The “almost” store managers were not surprisingly lost, at least the vast majority of them. They didn’t know retail, didn’t know the terminology, the labor structure or the training, with no clue on product knowledge, procedures, food safety, temperatures or sanitation. Nothing.

Now, no one believes in higher education more than yours truly. I returned to school in my late 40s. It was an enlightening and rewarding experience that had practical application. Such education can benefit anyone who is willing to put in the time and the work. However, nothing beats persistence, as Calvin Coolidge once said.

And nothing beats good old, hands-on experience.

In fact, most accomplished district and store managers (even produce directors) I worked with had little or no college under their belts. Mostly, it was years of on-the-job training.

One major chain I know of did something to fortify their existing assistant store manager ranks. Since most of these came up from the service or dry grocery departments, the company mandated that the assistants spend a minimum of six weeks working varying shifts in the perishable store departments (hands-on education), meaning the deli, the meat department, seafood, bakery and, of course, fresh produce.

In getting to know some of these assistant store managers later on in my career, where we worked together in other chains, they said this perishable gauntlet was a valued part of their training. I experienced some of the same as a specialist, as I traveled with and helped district managers of our chain (individuals overseeing a group of store managers — a position just under the company vice president level) understand what makes a fresh produce operation successful.

Going back to a more common starting point, I once interviewed a potential produce clerk for a new store position. I probably would have hired him without experience, but since he swore that he was an accomplished produce person (and out of curiosity) I couldn’t help but test him. I asked, “So tell me: When are fresh pomegranates in season?”

He answered quickly, guessing. “Oh, promgrants? (intentional misspell) Um, all year, year-round, yup, year-round.” I smiled knowingly.

We hired him all right, but to help out in the front end of the store — where he could work as an “almost” cashier.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

A Christmas Eve Blizzard and an Unforgettable Holiday Rush

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 14:54:03 GMT

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful …” — from the song, “Let It Snow.”

Friday. Christmas Eve, 1982. The weather service in Denver correctly predicted a white Christmas, something that is uncommon, despite the Mile-High City’s chilly reputation. In fact, the odds are low at around 14% on average. The TV weather teams that morning all said to expect 6 inches to 8 inches of snow.

Man, were they wrong.

As I left the house for my 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. shift as a produce assistant manager, the blowing and drifting snowstorm compelled me to turn back after a few blocks and switch out my economy car for our 4x4 truck. I told my wife, who was five months pregnant with our first baby, to stay home from her job. No argument there.

It wasn’t your stereotypical Hallmark card Christmas snow. This was a blizzard.

No one knew it at the time, but the city would end up getting 24 inches of snow in a 24-hour period. When I arrived for work, the store was as busy as anyone expected from our newest flagship location. In fact, it was a trifecta of booming business factors: The day before Christmas, heading into the weekend and, of course, the storm. Any “snow rush” brought in far more traffic than usual. Also, stores were closed on Christmas Day, so, load up.

We used to say, “Yeah, John Q. Public can’t make it to work in a snowstorm, but they can sure make it to the grocery store.” We were slammed.

We didn’t have terms then for severe storms like Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse or Snowzilla, though these would have fit the bill that crazy Christmas Eve. On such days, the weather is the news. It even had a level of excitement for all of us in our early 20s. We’re thinking, “This is awesome. Maybe it’s a record snowfall!”

Our store manager, Mike Fitzgerald, was on the move around the store, making sure we had enough product, making sure we were keeping up with stocking and making sure everyone had enough hands on deck, even sending so-equipped people with four-wheel-drives into the abyss to pick up employees who couldn’t even make it out of their own driveways.

The not-so-muffled question among us was, that’s all well and fine, but how is everyone going to get home later tonight? And on Christmas Eve? The storm outside was raging. It was snowing hard, sideways in fact. Whiteout conditions. Whatever excitement it had to begin with soon wore off.

Brave road-plow crews were on the job but were soon overwhelmed.

As the afternoon wore on, our store was still crowded, but fewer made it inside to shop. Darkness soon fell and people (customers and employees) began to realize: There was no way that many were going home that night. I dragged out a few pallets and loaded them into the bed of my truck so I could have some traction when I left.

Anyone with a four-wheel-drive truck had a chance, however slim. I loaded my cab with a few fellow employees who lived along my way home. By the time I left the store, roads were a mess as the blizzard raged. My truck tires sank repeatedly but pushed on, fishtailing and straining to keep momentum.

Radio reports urged people to stay off the streets. Since the side streets were impassible with 3- and 4-foot drifts, the best I could do was let my employee passengers bail out as close to home as we dared. They all managed to get home safely.

Back at the store (and all the stores in the chain), hundreds of customers and employees had to hunker down for the night. Store managers and their crews were under orders from the main office to accommodate everyone stranded inside as comfortably as possible. Everyone could prepare and eat whatever they desired at no cost, even steak and lobster.

Nobody wanted to be stuck in a grocery store that night, no matter what the dining perks.

The storm subsided the next morning on Christmas Day. It was eerily quiet outside. The airport had shut down. No newspapers delivered that day. Cars were buried in 6-foot drifts. The slow dig-out began.

The then-record storm paralyzed the city. It took days for our trucks to resume deliveries. Stock was extremely limited. Employees were slow to return through the muck. The stores, of course, were slammed as customers walked, skied or snowshoed their way in, only to find slim pickings.

As for yours truly, I managed to make it home that night, although I eventually was buried in a drift not far from home, and it was very late. But at least I made it, which made it a memorable Christmas after all. Many people were not so lucky.

My big-hearted friend and produce pal Todd was kind enough to give a customer a ride home in his Jeep that Christmas Eve, which got stuck in the process. So, he and Todd trudged a few blocks and spent the night at the customer’s home. When Todd returned to his Jeep on Christmas Day, the vehicle was stripped.

Everyone remembered where they were that day. Everyone had similar stories of charity and heartache to share.

Still, there is still something to be said about a white Christmas. And now, every time I hear Bing Crosby’s classic song by the same name play on the radio each holiday season, I smile, recall the fantastic-awful-incredible 1982 blizzard and think to myself; Oh, Bing, be careful what you wish for. Ba, ba, ba, boom.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Do New Stores Receive Better Produce? Here's the Truth

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 14:45:33 GMT

Mark Twain once said: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

As an on-the-go produce retail specialist, you might say I’ve heard it all through the years after lacing up my Dansko footwear each morning.

Visualize this scene: It’s getting late in the day, and I’m inspecting perhaps the fifth and last store before I call it a day. Because of the early darkening winter sky, it’s a safe bet the morning-shift store and produce managers are long gone. My store visit goes fine with just a few concerns noted in my Day-Timer planner, which predated any so-called smart device.

I jot down a few notes, and I am approached by a curious part-time produce clerk.

I always enjoyed talking with the part-timers. I had an affinity toward them, as I was one myself not so many years before I traded in my soiled apron and knife sheath for the corporate sport coat and tie. The nice thing about chatting with clerks is that they often ask questions or make statements that even some managers would be afraid to bring up.

The openness and lack of fear were refreshing. After all, they probably thought at the time, what’s the worst that can happen? The big, bad produce supervisor will bust me down to a part-part-timer? Hardly.

It was, in all cases, a teaching moment. A chance to set something straight with the produce part-timer, who probably heard half-truths or rumors about what’s happening in a company.

Perhaps they question whether something is really company policy or not. Sometimes they asked product questions. (How long are winter apples held in storage? How is this even possible? What’s the best way to cut up a pineapple? What’s the powdery-looking substance on blueberries?) Other times I’d get a scheduling question. Random things like that. All normal questions I was happy to answer.

The question that always surprised me, posed during a new store setup or remodel, was this: Is it true that new store setups get a better grade of produce?

Now, I’d expect something like this coming from one of those young late-night clerks new to fresh produce. Sometimes, however, I’d get the question from a long-term produce manager.

Who knows where in God’s green Earth that myth ever started, but I heard it enough times over the years. Did our rank and file really think we had produce buyers that managed two separate receiving standards? One average (or lesser) grade for everyday run-of-the-mill quality that went to most of the stores every day, plus a whole other set of upgraded standards reserved for new or remodel setups, or perhaps this elevated grade was destined for stores in more affluent neighborhoods?

I shook my head at this comment every time and tried to calmly say that this was beyond ridiculous. Sometimes I’d just smile or laugh, depending on the relationship I had with the clerk or manager. “You honestly think we have a separate quality line sitting around somewhere?” I said.

I tried to calmly explain how I thought this might even come into a conversation.

I pointed out that with every new or remodel, as a setup crew, we always took our time, started with freshly scrubbed fixtures, new mats and new sign kits. Then we’d bring in fresh produce loads and assign produce clerks to hand-stack every fixture carefully, taking pains to turn the blush of a fruit facing outward, ensuring each display base was set so the end result was a neat and level presentation, complete with bright color breaks.

We also stocked every available SKU, with every destination display laid out neatly, every overhead light and product sign positioned just so and every automatic watering head adjusted perfectly.

When we were done setting up for the grand opening, every item gleamed like so many jewels in a case. It’s how fresh produce is supposed to be stocked: with care and attention to detail. You know, the right way.

And when someone dared suggest that we used special or upgraded produce for our grand opening or implied that we inserted fresh products not available to the rest of our stores, I’d wince and say, “Yeah, right. After all this work, I hope you don’t believe that.”

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

4 Ways to Minimize Produce Shrink

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:00:00 GMT

“I cull the herd. It’s what I do.”

This is a quote gleaned from fictional character Jacob Seed in the video game Far Cry 5. The word “cull” is further defined as to select or control and is sometimes used in conjunction with hunters when controlling or reducing animal herds.

In the produce aisle, culling is an all-too-familiar term.

We use the word “cull” as identifying and removing less-than-desirable produce from a display. Think: bruised apples, blistered tomatoes, potatoes with growth cracks, undersized leafy greens, packaged items with expired dates (or soon to be expired) — things like that.

This question is posed by many a produce manager to their clerks: “Would you let your sweet, silver-haired mother buy this? If not, cull it.”

Granted, what determines what stays on the shelf and what gets yanked is, at best, subjective. It’s not always a pass-or-fail process.

When I was a clerk starting out, my overly gross-profit-minded produce manager inspected my cull box beneath my cart. He pulled out a package of spinach leaves that I had culled, with visible slimy product within.

“Hey buck,” he said with a twitchy wink. “Put this back on the shelf, someone will buy it, heh, heh.”

He was a terrible manager, and no, I would not recommend that my sweet old mom shop there either. As a supervisor years later, I visited the occasional stores with such reputations: higher-than-average gross profit percentage, with lots of subpar produce on the shelf. Managers like that didn’t last long.

Shrink and waste is part of any produce operation. You can count on having anywhere from 6% to 10% shrink on average, and that’s if you’re doing everything correctly. Run a poor operation, and it can be much worse.

You can minimize shrink by sticking to a few points — and doing so consistently.

First, order closely: That means no more than absolutely necessary until your next truck arrives. Keeping a close inventory means that you are selling everything as fresh as possible.
Second, rotate faithfully: Rotate new stock in the cooler and rotate your displays with each stocking trip.
Third, keep a close eye on the invoices: Check each produce order for accurate quantities and pack count. Report any discrepancies to your warehouse or distribution center for credit.
Fourth, train your crew so that culling, straightening and detailing displays are second nature. Make it everyone’s routine. Cull your produce department closely each morning. Instruct your crew to cull carefully while they stock.

There’s more but you get the gist.

Above all? Don’t let your customers do your culling for you.

When someone inadvertently takes home substandard produce, you’re taking a chance that they’ll never shop with you again. Many a shopping experience has been spoiled because a clerk (or produce manager) overlooked a bag with a spoiled potato within or allowed that the slimy, packaged spinach stay on the shelf thinking (like my old boss) that someone will buy this.

Except when they do, it’s not funny. And it is definitely not good for business.

I thought of this recently after coming home from the lumber yard. A sheet of expensive plywood I bought had damage on one side that I missed. I returned it right away for an exchange, and as I was selecting a new, undamaged sheet, the front-end clerk arrived and tossed the damaged returned sheet back on the shelf right in front of me! I told him I’d just returned it. He just shrugged his shoulders and left.

I wondered if my old, just-put-it-back-on-the-shelf produce manager had taken over here as head of quality control.

The funny thing is that when you run a produce department correctly, following the few but crucial steps mentioned, the amount you cull is minimal. Further, when you do have culls, many times these can be reworked, repacked or sold off to the deli or other perishables for use in salad bars or as garnish. Sometimes it can be packed and reduced in price for quick sale, too.

But the main point I’m trying to instill, especially with newer managers and clerks is this: Never leave poor-quality produce on display. Always carry an empty box beneath your cart to cull into. Cull to start the day, during every shift and at the end of the day.

If your chain is really about freshness and quality, you will stress culling. It’s what we do.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Why Holiday Discounts are Key to Good PR

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 14:29:10 GMT

The holidays always remind me of our old produce staff meetings. We’d meet every Monday and Wednesday morning at the produce warehouse, right about 10 a.m.

This was after we, as specialists, had been on the job since 5 a.m., updating costs on our shared office computer, inserting our current prices, any pack changes and volume movements. Afterward, we’d return to the office after hitting the road to do competition price checks. More data input; the days of everything being tediously, routinely keyed into a program manually, ugh.

The buyers were in an equally early work mode: busy getting inventories in line and writing purchase orders, all while wearing their phone headsets, the indispensable umbilical cord to the buying world. By the 10 a.m. meeting, they were still taking care of last-minute details when we arrived at the warehouse conference room.

We talked price changes, ongoing events and reserved the most amount of time to cover upcoming ads. We’d write initial ad plans, sometimes months in advance.

Which brings me to the crux of this column topic, as when we revised imminent holiday ads someone always brought up the question, “Why do we need to give away so much for the holidays?” — the point always being that customers are going to buy cranberries, sweetpotatoes, parsley, celery, potatoes, herbs and more anyway.

So, why discount the whole shooting match? Why not just price normally and soak up all the added gross profit? Why, indeed. Why discount all those key items during the holidays?

For one, it’s just expected. Consumers expect a break for the holidays. Think: Black Friday.

Second, if you didn’t discount key holiday essentials, you could get stuck with way too much inventory afterward. If you don’t do something to drive sales, nothing else goes right.

Third, and most importantly: This is the time of year when the news outlets are comparing grocery prices. You never see the local action news team do this so much during, say, Labor Day or July Fourth holidays. Well, hardly anyhow.

But for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s? You and your competitors are all under the white-hot media spotlight.

The news makes it a ritual. The headline reads something like: Here’s how much this Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner will cost; then this is compared to last year or the year before. They will lay out the ads or even hit the stores and do their own price comparisons and then add it all up while they break it down: It costs so much for the turkey, so much for the potatoes, so much for the cranberries, the celery.

This pricing blitz includes many of the dry grocery holiday essentials. Everything is scrutinized from nuts to pumpkin pie to all the ingredients that make up the famous (or infamous) green bean casserole.

That’s when it boils down in a summary focus. Your chain is listed in order of affordability compared to every other major retail player. Where do you stand this year? First, second or worse? Whether you’re considered gourmet, discount or a chain somewhere in the middle, you’re going to look great, or not, based on how low you’ve discounted the holiday essentials.

Few shoppers lay out holiday ads on the counter, deciding where to shop for the holiday feast needs, but plenty of others are doing just that, and you can bet the final PR verdict in the news is all that customers notice. For your chain, it’s more than just bragging rights.

That No. 2 holiday ad pencil has to be as sharp as you can make it.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

A Fish Tale Suitable for the Produce Aisle

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 13:17:39 GMT

As November cold fronts signal the onset of all-too-near winter, it only seems fit to reminisce on — fishing. Here’s my tale.

I was a produce buyer in the late ’90s, and as anyone will attest today, it is a stressful job: tracking inventory closely, doing all I could to avoid out of stocks, to minimize shrink. Working closely with our produce inspectors in the warehouse, writing purchase orders nonstop all morning, then doing what I called my wet work — mop-up tasks in the afternoon such as correcting quantity errors; pricing those morning purchase orders; compiling my truck passings (confirmed, loaded orders) for accuracy; verifying truck locations and ETA; and joining impromptu, often unplanned, meetings; and fielding calls, so many as the phone rang nonstop all day. Calls from vendors, from stores, from customers, from bosses.

I compare it to being a Wall Street stockbroker, except they get paid a lot more.

So, it was a great relief to get ahead enough to take a rare, mid-weekday off to join my brother for a day of fall fishing. He knew a well-kept-secret spot in the Colorado mountains nearby that he said should be a great run — a time of year when good-sized trout were just waiting for us. Even if I got skunked, I saw it as a glorious opportunity: a rare day away from my desk, away from the stress.

Once on the river, my fly rod and I quickly forgot about all the worries of work.

As fly fishing goes, I’m a novice, but after I got a few pointers from my brother and his experienced pal, I had some luck as we spread out. And what a day it was.

I tied a weighted nymph fly on my leader, and it seemed every second or third cast I landed one fat trout after another, each weighing several pounds. The constant rush of the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon drowned out the sound of the nearby highway, and I fought to keep my balance as I traversed the boulders along the gravel banks.

Instead of my eyes glazing over a computer monitor, I studied the swirling current for just the right spot to cast into, or watched the beautiful trout slip gently back into the freezing water, their tails snapping as I released each catch.

Time rushed by as well, so much so that I forgot all about the sandwiches I packed.

It was already late in the afternoon when I climbed the embankment to rest. My 40-year-old arms and body were already sore from catching so many fish, trout so big that every single one was bigger than any I had caught in my entire life. I closed my eyes in the relaxed moment. Nirvana.

Just then, some loose gravel spilled nearby, tumbling down the hill.

A large, bearded man was carefully making his way down the hill. He seemed friendly enough and before long he stood beside me, admiring the river before sitting down to join me.

He was a truck driver and had stopped on the highway above to take a break and was watching me fish for a few minutes. We exchanged small talk. Being a produce guy, I love truckers. Where would we be without them, I said in passing. The more he spoke, the more my interest grew.

A truck driver? What’s your cargo? Your destination?

It turns out that he was hauling a load of fresh produce from California. He talked about some familiar picks (or pickups) he had on the West Coast that Monday and how his load was fully cubed (or loaded for maximum efficiency), and he was headed — for our company to unload the following morning.

Of all the people to run into. It was my driver. My truck.

I leaned back on the pile of gravel and had a good laugh. As did he. I mean, here I was, trying to get away from the chaos, trying to immerse myself in flies, leaders, the roar of the river, the thrill of the catch and putting work as far out of my mind as I could. And I did.

At least for a while. The next morning it was back to controlled chaos, the stress-pot of the buying desk, the nonstop phone calls and the crowded, produce receiving dock. Oh well.

Fishing was a much-needed break away from it all, and as we shared an early cup of coffee on the dock as he was getting unloaded my driver could attest: I wasn’t making up any fish stories.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.

Know When To Engage, and Disengage, With Customers

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 14:34:13 GMT

Customer engagement: Grocers love for their employees to talk to customers. Some chains have even required it over the years, employing secret shoppers so that if they come within a certain proximity to an employee, the chain wants to know: Did the clerk greet the shopper? Did the clerk ask the shopper if they found everything all right? That sort of thing.

Yeah, that sort of thing gives me the heebie-jeebies too.

That’s because a grocery chain should absolutely encourage employee engagement with customers, but it should be part of the training to be natural about it, as shoppers can sense if the interaction is contrived. That’s why it’s important for a chain to look for and hire people who are naturally helpful and friendly to begin with and to work with more introverted employees so that they learn to initiate some conversation while on the sales floor.

The produce department is especially the stage for such interaction.

This is because in most produce aisles, stock levels can go from full to low in one steady shopping surge. An hour or so of increased traffic or a longer shopping period dictates that displays need replenishment, and this requires produce managers and clerks to be the all-hands-on-deck crew to maintain fresh offerings and acceptable stock levels.

And of course, while this is all happening it’s only normal for produce people to be in the midst of all that shopping. Even when it’s not a big crowd of shoppers, the produce clerk is the face of the company, and they should know something about customer engagement.

The greeting, of course, is important. Just saying hello with a smile means a lot, even if the customer is only focused on grabbing what they need and moving on with their busy day. A greeting is also a good security measure, as (while shoplifting fresh produce is uncommon) anyone in the store with ill intent is far less likely to be problematic if the merchant acknowledges their presence.

Following up with a casual, “Are you finding everything all right?” goes a long way with customers as well. Most shoppers respond with a polite, “Yes, thanks,” but sometimes it creates an opening to help find an item — which triggers further sales and builds that shopping basket just a skosh more. Every item helps.

Most experienced clerks can read a customer’s body language. If someone seems perplexed while trying to find a ripe melon, hesitates while choosing mangoes on a display or studies a posted sign longer than usual, it’s a good idea to offer help. It’s likely that the customer needs it.

Many customers need help at one point or another in the produce aisle, and you are the expert to help them in the moment. Most customers are grateful that you step in to help with an item selection or a sample.

Interacting with customers can reach a counterproductive point as well. I recall that sometimes, clerks would start chatting with a shopper, and the conversation would go on (and on) to the point that I would have to walk by with a discreet look of “C’mon, wrap it up already.” The clerk would get the message. And when we got out of earshot of the customer, I’d remind them that it’s great to talk with customers, to be a popular clerk, but they also need to limit the conversation so that it doesn’t interrupt productivity either. It’s a fine balance, but clerks must be trained to have that internal clock timer to know when this point has arrived.
A common fault, but a fault all the same.

So, it’s good to be the on-floor goodwill fresh produce ambassador — to be the one who can direct customers to the apple variety they’re looking for, to help explain how to best cut up a pineapple or pomegranate, what vegetables are best for stir-fry, and so on. Produce clerks should offer help, greet customers naturally and be the friendly face of the company, as much as possible. It’s a great way to help build a customer base, increase sales and instill confidence.

Just don’t turn the conversation into, you know, a filibuster.

Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.