Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative
Recap LVII
There is an ad hoc group that started it all. The National Restaurant Association has its group working on a program and the Food Marketing Institute held a conference. All these buyer-led initiatives can get confusing, so to assist the trade in keeping track of them all, we are publishing this recap of coverage all […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Beware TV Crews Coming To A Market Near You
Our companion pieces, Rats in Los Angeles: The Produce Industry’s Shame and The Rats Of New York Teach The Produce Industry Some Lessons On Food Safety brought forth this letter from a reader close to the Pundit’s heart: When Joe Pellicone used to stretch his arms to show me the size of the rat that […]
Wal-Mart Continues To Change
Its Buying Practices
We’re getting a number of inquiries as a result of a couple of things: Wal-Mart’s recent announcement of what used to be called DC assignments, but now have been changed to dollar value assignments. A presentation at the Southeast Produce Council event by Tom Holbert, an “Opportunity Buyer” at Wal-Mart who buys tomatoes, citrus, grapes […]
Pundit Rewind LXVXVIX
The Pundit originally ran the Pundit Rewind on September 21, 2006. We continuously update it in order to keep everyone organized with respect to reference material on this subject; we have updated it with new items and run it again today. Spinach Crisis Summary With so much having been written in so short a time, […]
Pundit’s Pulse Of The Industry:
Cheesecake Factory’s
Kix McGinnis Nystron
Everclean Services’ Jack McShane
In order to better understand food safety procedures at foodservice operators, we’ve run a series of Pundit Pulses. Del Taco’s Janet Erickson and Notre Dame’ Dan Crimmins started us off with the perspectives of two smaller operators but with both individuals very focused on produce. Then Michael Spinazzola of Diversified Restaurant Systems gave us his […]
Lessons From The LA Market
Everyone in the produce industry has had a nice opportunity to “tsk, tsk” at the 7th Street Produce Market in Los Angeles. You just had to look at the videos included in our article, Rats in Los Angeles: The Produce Industry’s Shame, and it is obvious they have a horrible facility to begin with; it […]
Botulism And Carrot Juice
Summary LVXVIX
We’ve been asked to make available in one place our coverage of the recall by Wm. Bolthouse Farms of certain 100% carrot juice products and the broader implications of this issue for food safety. This piece is updated regularly and will be re-run to include new coverage of this outbreak and issue. We initiated our […]
Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative
Recap LVI
There is an ad hoc group that started it all. The National Restaurant Association has its group working on a program and the Food Marketing Institute held a conference. All these buyer-led initiatives can get confusing, so to assist the trade in keeping track of them all, we are publishing this recap of coverage all […]
Pundit’s Mailbag — Rats In The Trenches
An industry luminary whose multi-generational family business keeps him working in the trenches sent us a letter: I think that your column today, especially the article The Rats In Los Angeles: The Produce Industry’s Shame was the absolute perfect metaphor for those of us who operate daily in the trenches (rather than in the fancy […]
Will A&P/Pathmark
Have A Yogi Berra Moment?
A&P has announced and Pathmark confirmed that A&P is in talks to buy Pathmark and has offered $12.50 a share in cash and stock for each Pathmark share. A&P has been retreating for some time, including selling off its Canadian division, and this would represent a consolidation in its strong New York market where A&P’s […]
