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TALIA SHANDLER, 38 Operations And Business Development Shapiro-Gilman-Shandler Co. (SGS Co)
HQ: Los Angeles
Hometown: Los Angeles
Hobbies: Yoga, soccer, foodie trekker, youth mentoring
Personal/Community: Married, three sons Motto in life: Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
Work history: Coming from a multi-gen- erational produce family, Shandler boasts a breadth of experience from farm-to-table to domestic and international business.
Fresh out of college with a Bachelor’s Degree in mathematics, she moved to Las Vegas and opened a produce distribution company. In 2007, she sold the business, moved back to Los Angeles and earned an M.B.A. at UCLA Anderson. She then took a position in the strategy consulting group at The Wonderful Company focusing on agri- culture brands — citrus, pomegranates and nuts — across functions. In 2010, she worked with New Zealand’s economic development agency (NZTE) as a business development manager helping varied food and beverage companies increase their footprint in retailers and the U.S. market. In 2012, she began working alongside her parents as the fourth generation to operate SGS Produce. While SGS, established in 1907, is the oldest produce wholesaler in Los Angeles, Shandler brings forward- thinking to the business as well as envi- ronmental stewardship. Recently, the TV station KCET’s 2019 program “LA Foodways” featured Shandler for her active effort in food recovery. She also spearheaded the effort for SGS to become the first zero- waste produce company in Los Angeles.
Q: What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started your career?
Listen to your elders – they really do know best. While I was living in Las Vegas, my grandfather would come and stay with me. He was ahead of his time on planning direct drops for freight and vertically integrating. He always wanted to buy orange groves, and I was working at Wonderful at the time on the easy-peel Mandarins. I talked him out of it, citing data about decrease of market share for Navels. I wish I had listened more to him.
Q: What advice would you give someone new to the produce industry? Produce is an industry where hard work is still truly rewarded. Produce is an equal playing field where family name and education level don’t ensure success and conversely success can definitely come without it. Produce is about relationships and follow-up.
Q: What was the “aha” moment when you knew the produce industry was the best choice for you?
When I was young and visited a farm, I
had several ‘aha’ moments. Standing in a field with plants swaying in the breeze for as far as I could see just gave me a sense of wonder and belonging. No matter what the crop, no matter where the field, each of those moments were, and still are, ‘aha’ for me.
Q: What are some of the more chal- lenging aspects of a career in the produce industry today?
Everything from regulations to freight, to technology in operations is changing so quickly that it is sometimes difficult to know what new things to embrace and which to decline in favor of the traditional methods.
Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception about the produce industry by the public at large? Produce should be about the taste and expe- rience while eating. Unfortunately, we have trained the consumer to care more about the way a piece of produce looks rather than the way it tastes.
40 / JUNE 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS