Pundit’s Pulse Of The Industry:
Bigg’s Marvin Lyons
Received a call from Bruce McEvoy, Director of Global Affairs for Seald Sweet. Bruce and the Pundit were the lone American members of the trade down at the AllFresh Conference in South Africa. Bruce was interested in knowing about how sales at retail are progressing on spinach, bagged salads and other items in light of […]
Yes, We Have Bananas…
In Modified Atmosphere Packaging Too!
The Pundit is based in South Florida, which coincidentally is where Chiquita, working with Publix, is running a test of its new Chiquita Fresh & Ready product. The slogan is: Bananas that stay perfectly fresh until you’re ready to eat them! The product is a covered tray of three bananas, net weight 17.2 oz. It […]
Election Observations
Although the Pundit is filled with countless words analyzing public policy as it relates to the industry, with issues such as immigration and food safety, the truth is that the long-term prosperity of the trade is inevitably tied to the overall success of the country more than to any of these specific issues. The reason […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Insights From A Conscientious Grower
The Pundit received this thoughtful missive: First let me commend you on the Perishable Pundit. It has become one of my “must read” emails everyday! Our industry has traditionally not been associated with being “deep thinkers”, and you have definitely become our Thought Leader. As you probably can tell from your rapidly expanding readership, we […]
Eastes Leaves Sunkist
Here at the Pundit, we’ve dealt quite extensively with the future of Sunkist. Among the more prominent pieces: We published Sunkist Wakeup Call? which asked what the message was in the loss of Paramount Citrus as a Sunkist shipper. We wrote a piece entitled, International Positions of Two Citrus Companies, which suggested that the grower/owners […]
DiPiazza Resignation Raises Questions
About Wal-Mart
Sometimes the most significant news is shrouded in seemingly idiosyncratic announcements. So you may be surprised that in the midst of all these food safety crises, perhaps the most significant piece of news for the perishables industry recently is word from Bentonville that Bob DiPiazza, Senior Vice President and General Merchandising Manager for Fresh, is […]
Pundit Rewind XXVI
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, […]
Botulism And Carrot Juice Summary XVI
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 […]
Hannaford’s Stars Are Shining
One of things we try to do at the Pundit is give a “heads up” on things that may wind up being important. For example, on September 12, 2006, just as Hannaford Bros. launched its Hannaford Guiding Stars program, we ran a piece pointing it out to the trade. For example we pointed out: Hannaford […]
PMA/United Merger Dilemma:
A Two-Track Proposal
As the past weekend approached, both United and PMA sent out to each of their respective members another of their issue updates, this one dealing with the salmonella outbreak. Both were virtually identical, and I received copies of both from various industry members complaining again of waste and duplication. As we reported here, many industry […]
