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Black Boxes, White Noise And The NY Produce Show
Black box — a complex piece of equipment with contents that are a mystery to the user.
White noise — backdrop of ambient sound creating an indistinct commotion.
New York Produce Show and Conference – four days of clarity on all things produce.
“Spends 120+ days on the road ... observing all points of the sup- ply chain ... tying together crop production, sourcing and retail mer- chandising”, or at least that’s what a bio says about me.
This task, figuring out the supply chain, is not as easy as it once was. When the last generation started, a friendly station master would tell you to which markets railcars were being requested, and the telegraph office in town would give you a copy of the auction report, so you knew what each label was being sold for — real actual prices, not a range voluntarily shared with the
USDA. Truck farms were many and jobbers were open to receiving from a ‘30-day field.’ Market trips involved walking terminal markets in the predawn hours. Products were displayed for all to see. The supply chain was much more trans- parent.
A Cornell faculty member who spends a lot
of time studying the fresh produce distribution
system gives a presentation entitled, “The
U.S. Food System: The Central Role of Fresh
Produce” to a group with less than five years
produce experience, part of the Foundational
Excellence program at The New York Produce
Show and Conference. I passed the five-year
mark decades ago, but I find value in education-
al boot camps. I find my grapes in retail outlets
and have no clue how they got there. One of the
most impossible questions a grower is asked by
consumers is, “When and where can I buy your
product near me?” Supply chain know-it-all? Not even close. Too old for the Foundational Excellence program? Yes, but they let me slide and I got to sit in.
Kristen Park’s one-hour session on fresh produce distribution was the survey course to kick off the day. At one point, the slide comes up on the screen with lots of boxes and lines. You know the diagram; the lines represent how produce gets from farm to consumers, and the size of the boxes represent the relative size of these pieces in the supply chain.
As businesses on both the supply and demand side have consoli- dated, one would expect the channels to be increasingly direct. Farm- ers sell to the store which sells to consumers? Farmers sell to chefs who serves diners? That’s just white noise. The more direct the lines,
BY JOHN PANDOL
the smaller the boxes. The lines crisscross through boxes labeled as various types of intermediaries. The biggest box representing the most value in the supply chain? A big black box labeled wholesale.
Someone pointed out it seemed odd that biggest piece of the sup- ply chain puzzle was wholesale. In reality, the box labeled wholesale represented a wide range of activities and value-added services that were difficult to identify and quantify. Message to the young profes- sionals and university students at the Foundational Excellence pro- gram (and readers of this article): produce distribution is a huge black box, and inside are all kinds of different careers you never imagined.
The young professionals and students take in a lot of information about food from industry sources and the general culture. They are aware of all the topics that are trending, such as food waste, sin- gle-use plastics, sustainability, transparency and a laundry list of so- cial, ethical, nutritional and environmental attributes, a cacophony of claims, each allegedly of critical importance to consumers. It’s just
so much white noise. That’s not completely true, but each attribute’s importance is not directly re- lated to media mentions.
At some point, the marketing of ugly pro- duce is brought up, and Jim Prevor shares with attendees that although he receives many press releases announcing merchandising programs of ugly produce, he never receives a press release announcing these programs being discontinued. Right now, single-use plastic showing up in the environment is trending, but what happened to recycling? No one seems to be able to tell me if or why the recycling bins in which I have been dutifully depositing and wheeling out to the curb every other Thursday for almost 20 years have failed to prevent a plastic straw to make its way to the middle of the Pacific Ocean?
My bio also states that I am a trade show junkie and serial store checker. Know why? One can’t just walk into a wholesaler’s ware-
house or a grower’s operation. No one shares who invoices what to whom. One can buy category data of store sales but not from every retailer. But anyone can walk into a grocery store and observe what’s going on. Anyone can register for a produce event or seminar. And everyone is welcome at The New York Produce Show and Conference. These are the most accessible vista points into the black box that is the produce distribution system. pb
John Pandol is director of special projects at Pandol Bros., Inc., in Delano, CA. His expertise is turning crops into value. He is also a trade show junkie and serial store checker (he freely shares these observations in print, online and in public forums).
voice of the industry
As businesses on both the supply and demand side have consolidated, one would expect the channels to be in- creasingly direct. Farmers sell to the store which sells to consumers? Farm- ers sell to chefs who serves diners? That’s just white noise.
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