King Of The Lunchroom
Our piece, King William’s Produce Requests, detailed the requests that William, aka Jr. Pundit Primo, had made when he got the chance to be “King of the Lunchroom.” School is now over and William is eating in camp now, but he had his chance to be King just before school closed for the summer. After […]
Post-Holiday Produce Promotions
The National Mango Board recently conducted a few focus groups that cover a range of subjects. You can see some of the key findings here. Among the interesting things found: Many participants reported eating mangos for the first time when they were on vacation. Very few grew up eating mangos This brings up the idea […]
Food’s Carbon Footprint
Not Easy To Measure
Before we in America acquire the British fascination with “food miles” — which we most recently discussed here when Richard Branson pointed out the impact of such a policy on Africa — we ought to look at what they are actually finding out in Britain as they look into the subject. The African Channel picked […]
Investing In Produce Managers
We recently heard from an old friend who has served as a produce manager for one of the “Big 3” supermarket chains for over 25 years. He works in a strong store with total sales of around $710,000 a week of which produce accounts for about $85,000. What is interesting is that our friend, who […]
Del Monte Raid Sheds Light
On Immigration Problems
Within the produce trade, the immigration issue has played as an agricultural issue, with the focus being labor for harvest. Yet, almost certainly, just as important a stake in the immigration battle is the need for labor by the farmer’s customers. Restaurants and retail stores are obviously dependent on low cost immigrant labor. And now, […]
USDA Fruit And Vegetable Advisory Committee Falls Short Of Mandatory Regulation Recommendation
Very few industry institutions are more important than the USDA Fruit and Vegetable Advisory Committee. The produce industry often struggles to be heard in Washington amidst the enormous weight of the so-called “program crops” — commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton. Virtually all the money USDA doles out goes to these large crops, […]
Working With Wal-Mart
May Not Be As Bad As You Think —
Tesco Could Be Tougher!
All our focus on changes in Wal-Mart’s buying practices has highlighted how unhappy many vendors are with Wal-Mart, to the point that they have strategic initiatives established to diversify their business away from Wal-Mart. This, in fact, is what has made many U.S. vendors so excited about Tesco’s arrival in America, as it opens up […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Immigration As An Economic Issue
With the immigration compromise on life support and Lou Dobbs saying Give it a rest, Mr. President, we received a letter on immigration from Rick Eastes of Rixx International Marketing Co., in which he draws to our attention an article in the Economistentitled Guests vs Gatecrashers. The piece is subtitled, The uncomfortable economics of immigration […]
Risk And Raw Milk
We have paid some attention to the issue of selling raw milk in articles such as Raw Milk And Dirty Produce: Perfect Together and a follow-up piece that looked at the issue and tied it together with irradiation — you can read that piece here. Now we find The Flint Journal profiling the fact that […]
Costco 3rd-Quarter Slideshow Available
Costco has posted a slideshow highlighting its 3rd quarter results for fiscal year 2007. Most of the graphics are picked up from its 2nd quarter slideshow that we talked about here. What is interesting to us and accounts for why Costco is such a fierce competitor is this slide: At a time when Wal-Mart has […]
