The magazine you hold in your hand is a winner. PRODUCE BUSINESS has been awarded 1st place in the 1989 Successful Magazine Award competition. This award, given to one business publication in our circulation category, was granted on the basis of the “outstanding quality of writing, editing, artwork, and design” contained in PRODUCE BUSINESS.
This award is a great honor, and, as an independent third party assessment, it helps to explain the even greater honor bestowed on PRODUCE BUSINESS: the fact that so many wishes to read PRODUCE BUSINESS that today, PRODUCE BUSINESS stands as the largest circulation publication serving the produce field.
Winning awards is great, everyone at PRODUCE BUSINESS works hard to put out the best, most useful magazine in our field, and it sure is nice to have an objective source give PRODUCE BUSINESS a pat on the back. But the real prize is you! That month after month, issue after issue, we keep you interested and reading and learning. That’s the golden ring we all work for here at PRODUCE BUSINESS.
A magazine that goes unread is mere paper and ink. PRODUCE BUSINESS is a vital part of our readers’ professional lives, a resource to help our readers do their job or run their businesses better, easier and more profitably. PRODUCE BUSINESS exists only because you pick it up, read our articles and put the ideas into action. In doing so, you give life and meaning to concepts and ideas. You turn your own business into a living laboratory of increased sales and profits.
And so, when I accepted this award, I did so in your name. For you, as a reader, are the real winner, You, as a reader, are the one who makes everything possible, You, as a reader, have made PRODUCE BUSINESS your magazine. And that means that You, as a reader, are the real recipient of this award.
Now that PRODUCE BUSINESS has been recognized as the very best, I hope that even more people will want to become subscribers. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the phone calls and letters I have received in which people explain the various ways PRODUCE BUSINESS has helped them in their businesses. But I think of how many thousands of buyers and merchandisers, executives and menu-planners, exporters and brokers, how many countless thousands we could help. And if we do just one useful thing for them each year, what an incredible return we are offering on a small subscription price.
But, I have a secret reason for why I’m glad PRODUCE BUSINESS has been given this honor. I was raised in a family of produce people. For as long as we can trace back, my ancestors have made their living selling produce. So I care, in a very personal way, how the produce industry is perceived by others.
Up to this point, I don’t think other industries have looked to the produce field as an important one. Nor have they thought that in this humble industry, there might dwell some of the most exciting and interesting stories in the pantheon of American commerce. And now, I’m proud to have won this award, because the produce industry has been singled out as having the number one publication of all the many industries that make up this world. No magazine could be awarded this honor without having the raw material to draw on. In other words, the people and organizations that comprise the industry have to be sufficient for the publication to draw strength
Well, PRODUCE BUSINESS is very lucky to have been able to draw on the strength of the great people of this industry. The produce business is filled with people who get up early and work hard every day. The occupations may be less glamorous than other fields, and perhaps our people don’t always get the recognition they deserve. Maybe, in some small way, this award will let others know that exciting and important things are happening among those who make their living from the fruits of the earth here in the produce field. And maybe, just maybe, there will be a child out there who will look at his father a little differently because the world will understand a little more about the importance of the field in which his father toils.
Even before the first word was written for the very first issue of PRODUCE BUSINESS, I dreamed that this humble venture might enrich the lives of the participantsinf our field. I dreamt that we might expose the extraordinary struggles that are part of building an industry. Now, with this award, we know that an independent, objective source has said that the produce industry is where American business can look for leadership. So everyone in the industry has the right to hold their heads a little higher, for it is the produce field that has been truly honored. We here at PRODUCE BUSINESS can only be grateful for having been given the opportunity to make the people of produce shine a little brighter in the eye of the world.