Pundit’s Mailbag —
In Support Of Rob Robson
We received a letter from the Produce Marketing Association’s recently installed Chairman of the Board: Thanks so much for taking the time to recognize Rob Robson in the November 3, 2006 Pundit. When we started evaluating candidates for this year’s PMA Executive Committee, we spent a lot of time discussing the talent and experience that […]
Pundit’s Pulse Of The Industry:
Westborn Markets, Schnucks, Wal-Mart
In response to industry inquiries, we launched a Pundit Pulse series to ascertain the way the spinach crisis is impacting sales at retail. Mira Slott, Special Investigator and Special Projects Editor for the Pundit, went to work. Special thanks to Bigg’s Director of Produce, Marvin Lyons, for kicking us off. You can read what he […]
Big Holiday Sale At Wal-Mart —
Whatever Happened To EDLP?
Wal-Mart released quarterly sales and earnings. You can read the release here. We found this the most interesting quote from the release: “We are pleased that Wal-Mart again had record sales and earnings for the third quarter,” said Lee Scott, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. president and CEO. “In addition, we are pleased that we’ve seen improvements […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Grower/Shipper Calls Buyer-Led Food
Safety Initiative Hollow Call To Action
Here at the Pundit we’ve been doing a lot of work on the Buyer Led-Food Safety Initiative. You can read here of the issues related to this important issue. In response to our piece Buyer-led Food Safety Effort Leaves Open Question of Buyer Commitment, we received a number of phone calls and this letter from […]
Viral Marketing: Advertising With A Twist
One of the things we are always doing here is looking for ways to advance the industry. Obviously we try to have the kind of content that will help move the industry forward, but this attitude also includes pushing industry marketing to the next level. When we started PRODUCE BUSINESS magazine, a sister publication of […]
Bankrupt Brown & Cole Blames Wal-Mart
When on November 8, 2006, Brown & Cole LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, the company blamed three factors: First, in 1999 Associated Grocers, which owns a minority stake in Brown & Cole LLC, stopped paying dividends. Brown & Cole had been receiving $2 million a year up to that point. Second, healthcare costs […]
Spinach Crisis Summary Rewind XXIX
With so much having been written in so short a time, thought it would be helpful to publish a sort of round-up of available material to help people understand the whole situation regarding spinach and this E. coli breakout: The Perishable Pundit itself has dealt extensively with the subject in several major pieces. On September […]
Botulism And Carrot Juice Summary XIX
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
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 has a conference planned. 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 […]
New Arrival At Stemilt
For many years, there was a tradition that the trade would publish both wedding and birth announcements for children born into families active in the trade. Being born to the business, the birth of the Pundit was announced in several trade papers. The practice was discarded over the years as the industry became much larger […]
