Issues To Digest
By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business
It is exciting news, indeed, that PMA will be partnering with the National Restaurant Association and the International Foodservice Distributors Association to seek ways to support healthy living through the use of more produce. More research, and kicking off an “Executive Invitational Think Tank” at the PMA Foodservice Conference can only help bolster this cause. Certainly, Markon, along with its president, Tim York, deserve a hat tip for helping to fund this initiative.
Until the results are in, though, let this columnist take a stab at identifying five of the issues we need to work on.
1) Getting it on the menu.
Most growers produce product and then look to sell it. This is at least plausible at retail where major chains carry a very broad range. At restaurant chains, however, it matters not how sweet the peach or how low the price; if a restaurant chain doesn’t have peaches on the menu, it is not buying.
Yet very few produce marketers have the time horizon, the competence or the money to work with a chain for years in the hope of getting its product on the menu. It seems problematic for, say, a cantaloupe producer to invest a lot of money to convince McDonald’s to add a half cantaloupe to the breakfast menu. Even if McDonald’s does add it, the company may not buy the cantaloupes from our diligent marketer.
The challenge: Can we come up with an institutional mechanism that can assist in getting produce on the menu even in those industry segments where the producers are small and commodity-oriented?
2) Will operators help farmers?
Operators typically think the producers should find ways to accommodate them. But, farmers are an unusual type of producer, subject to many variables that factories are not subject to, and if we want to preserve a vibrant production sector, restaurants may have to do more.
Retailers traditionally receive many calls from producers who are struggling with a surplus and asking for help moving it. If the relationship is good, very often retailers will go on special, both because they can offer consumers a great value and because they can help their supply base.
Farmers need this kind of flexibility as often 100 percent of their annual profits can come from how these surpluses are handled.
Traditionally, restaurants have used produce as an ingredient, or offered it on the menu at a set price and have had very little ability to swing suddenly to absorb extra crop. Yet producers need this help.
The challenge: Can we get the foodservice community to do something special for the grower because they want to affiliate with fresh produce in the mind of the consumer? Perhaps a snack fruit bowl can be placed at the cash register of every McDonald’s with the offering based on what is at peak volumes.
3) Value for excellence
Most top produce marketers look to sell their produce at a price above the market average. When it comes to wooing growers, packer/shippers point to this ability to sell at above average prices as a reason for growers to affiliate.
Yet in foodservice, one consistently hears that most operators are only interested in price. To some degree this is understandable; after all, the consumers won’t see the brand on those produce items when they are cooked or served. But, if foodservice is going to be the least profitable market, it is simply not going to be the priority of the trade.
The challenge: Can we make foodservice sales sufficiently profitable that the produce production segment will be interested in pursuing this opportunity?
4) Fresh vs. Frozen/Canned
One hopes that in some combination of a desire to affiliate their foodservice operations with local, healthy and fresh, foodservice operators will decide to focus on fresh. Yet this may be the most difficult challenge of all. Frozen food has been improving, and white-table-cloth restaurants are only a tiny portion of the industry. For many chains, canned mushrooms or frozen broccoli are just fine.
The lower shrink, consistent availability, consistent product quality, consistent price, all lead operators to go canned and frozen, even though consumers often indicate a preference for fresh produce.
The challenge: Can we get operators to override their own logistical preferences in order to delight consumers with fresh produce?
5) Getting a sincere commitment to fresh produce
In recent years, many quick-serve operators have featured produce on their menus. Yet it is uncertain how much of this is a sincere commitment to sell fresh produce and how much is window dressing to impress government and consumer advocates.
The McDonald’s located near the Produce Business office offers late-night drive-through service. If you order a salad they’ll tell you it’s not available on the “night menu.” Once a week, this columnist’s children get to go to McDonald’s, along with their carpool friends after religious instruction. Though everyone gets an order of McDonald’s Apple Dippers, we would say they are out of stock 20 percent of the time. This is a company that is never out of a hamburger bun. We suspect if this franchisee was out of hamburgers or French fries, he would lose his franchise — being out of Apple Dippers is viewed with less concern.
The challenge: Can we get quick-serve restaurants to not view produce as window dressing for regulators, but as a core menu offering that must be available at all times?