Poor Taste No Accident

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

As with motherhood and charity, few are prepared to say a word against taste. Certainly, there is unanimous agreement that produce items should taste wonderful. Obtaining this, in some cases, may require complicated varietal research and a changeover of crops. In other cases, it may require the development of new taste-based specs for retail procurement.

We could improve the taste consumers experience on many items right now, except that short-term interests of the trade stand in opposition. Take apples, for example. Here is a dirty little secret: Apples require refrigeration. Frieda Caplan once addressed the Washington apple growers, pointing out they spend fortunes refrigerating their warehouses and shipping in refrigerated trucks. Then their product is, more often than not, put out in the stores on a non-refrigerated display.

There is plenty of blame to go around. On the one hand, it is terrible for retailers to make a conscious decision to reduce the eating quality of the fruit they are selling by putting items needing refrigeration on dry racks. On the other hand, trade promotion groups and individual shippers regularly push to get placement on big dry tables at the entrance to produce departments — regardless of the effect on the product.

In the short term, putting any item in a large display in a prominent location — far easier to do when you aren’t limited to refrigerated cases — is a surefire way to boost sales. But long-term, people who buy mealy apples will buy fewer.

The same dynamic occurs with many seasonal fruits. The first fruit hits a short market with consequently high prices. This encourages growers to pick fruit, not at its peak of flavor. Retailers often demand this sub-standard fruit so they can gain a competitive edge over other retailers as the first to feature it.

Unfortunately, the dynamic is now well established. The first fruit of the season comes out. It is bought up at high prices. The poor taste turns off consumers. This reduces consumer demand for weeks.

The challenge for the industry is how to break the cycle that perpetuates poor taste. In Florida, the state restricts the shipment of grapefruit without a minimum brix level. There may be a possibility of putting this type of taste standard into grade standards, and PMA might serve a useful purpose by putting together a task force to examine its feasibility.

There may be a competitive advantage for retailers or shippers willing to make taste a priority and eschew things such as dry racks for produce that requires refrigeration or featuring early product without taste.

But it is not an accident that a lot of produce isn’t optimal in flavor. There are real issues driving this, and resolving those issues is the key to improving flavor.

One reason people enjoy fresh produce in white tablecloth restaurants is that the chefs exercise judgment. A product may be available 52 weeks a year, but chefs don’t put it on a menu 52 weeks a year because the taste isn’t optimal. Great restaurants adapt their menu to the availability of great ingredients.

Retailers can help consumers enjoy produce in that way by highlighting the quality of various produce items. This function isn’t really in the DNA of most produce departments because from time immemorial, produce was available only when it was fresh, seasonal and tasty. So the mere display of peaches was an announcement local peaches were in and juicy. Then they were gone.

Now, when produce departments sell pretty much everything all the time, consumers would benefit from some guidance about what is really at peak flavor — right now. A produce department is a funny place. It has the variety of frozen or canned — but without the consistency of flavor. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for effective merchandising and marketing.

Bryan’s take that retailers should focus on learning from foodservice is a wise one. However, the competition between the two sectors is overrated. Those numbers showing 50 percent of the consumer food dollar being spent on foodservice focuses on dollars, not the amount of food. Most food is still bought retail. In addition, much of the foodservice business is inaccessible to retail competition, with hospitals, prisons, the military, nursing homes, etc., all in foodservice. Add to this cruise lines, hotels, and vacation eaters, plus those who want an out-of-house experience: teenagers on dates, harried parents looking to get away from the kids. There is no competing to win over any of this business to retail.

All this exposure to foodservice, however, does alter consumer expectations. Consumers who knew only iceberg lettuce try a spinach salad and learn they like it. They read on a menu that they are eating heirloom tomatoes and decide they love the flavor.

There is a lesson in this for retailers as it implies they need to be looking for products restaurants like to feature. There is also a lesson for shippers and promotion boards.

Many years ago, I heard a speech at a pistachio grower meeting by Dick Spezzano, who at the time was working as the produce director for Vons and had recently finished his gig as chairman of PMA. He urged growers to consider doing what was necessary to get their pistachios into a bucket at the Sizzler salad bar. There could be no better sampling program.

Sizzler has gone through Chapter 11, Spezzano is now a consultant, and the PMA chairman isn’t a man — she is a woman named Janet Erickson who works for a foodservice operator named Del Taco. A lot has changed, but the point still resonates: The produce trade needs to look at foodservice and try to take advantage of an extraordinary sampling opportunity.