On more than one occasion on the industry conference calls to discuss the spinach crisis, Bryan Silbermann, President of the Produce Marketing Association, mentioned the many crises he had gone through with the produce industry, going all the way back to Alar on apples and cyanide in Chilean grapes. I know of what he speaks, for I was there as well and I know that Bryan and I share the opinion that, despite the many issues that have arisen over the years, there was never a situation such as this spinach situation.
Now we are over the hump, but certainly not anywhere near healed. It is going to take a lot to get everything together again. PMA is doing its part by offering two special workshops at its upcoming convention on the next steps for the industry. Learn about them here and here. If you can attend, you should.
The real key to recovery is in the hands of retailers. It is a real chicken-and-the-egg situation, as was revealed by several of our retailers in recent entries of our Pundit Retail Pulse. The recovery certainly will be slow if retailers wait for consumers to be confident in spinach while the consumers, themselves, wait for their retailers to give a clue, via advertising and extensive displays, that the retailers are confident in spinach.
But if retailers will step up to the plate with bountiful displays of spinach at bargain prices, ample signage and put spinach on ad frequently — consumers will sense that their retailers believe in the product and will start to feel more comfortable and will start to buy.
Many innocent spinach farmers have been horribly damaged by this crisis, and they need all our support.
The Perishable Pundit and its sister publication, PRODUCE BUSINESS, would like to do our bit to help as well.
We are going to offer, absolutely free, an advertising program for any marketer of spinach who sells nationally or in a substantial region.
The plan will include a free logo link sponsorship online at PerishablePundit.com, with a link to the vendor’s web site and appearance as appropriate in one or both of two special formatted directories of spinach suppliers that PRODUCE BUSINESS will be publishing, one for loose spinach and one for bagged spinach.
There will be no charge whatsoever.
If you would like to participate in this free opportunity, please send us a note here.
