Our piece, Video of Terminal Market Wholesalers Does Not Portray Their True Function, brought some laughs by playing off the stereotypes associated with terminal market buyers.
Now we owe a hat tip to Chris Puentes, President at Interfresh, Inc., who saw the terminal market video and sent another one along. This one, produced by “Canjela” is titled “Produce Salesman” and plays on the dynamic that occurs between a grower and his marketing agent.
This one shrewdly plays on stereotypes on both sides of the conversation. The sales rep who has an explanation for everything, including some improbable claims and the grower who cries poverty but, somehow, isn’t poverty-stricken.
Although these stereotypes wouldn’t be funny if there wasn’t a tad of truth to them, it is also true that few would stay in business if they were really all excuses all the time.
Toward the end of the video, the salesman identifies an item with great prices: Organic mini-Japanese albino eggplant, and the grower points out that it is a low volume item. In fact the salesman advised not increasing the production of that item during the planning session because of fear it would break the market.
Which it would have. The Pundit Poppa always said the produce industry was a very tough business because when one was getting high prices, it was typically because one had limited quantities available to sell. On the other hand, when one had low prices, it was typically because one had a lot of product to sell.
Many thanks to Chris Puentes for passing this along:
