ORLANDO, FL - Our industry is one that has never shied away from giving back and helping create better, stronger communities. That is why it was exciting to hear that Harps Food Stores kicked off “Produce for Kids Fridays” last week in celebration of its 5th Produce for Kids in-store cause marketing campaign. In addition to in-store signage offering healthy, easy meal inspirations for families, the produce teams at Harps will also be serving as campaign ambassadors by wearing Fruits & Veggies & Giving Back t-shirts every Friday and giving out $1 produce bucks coupons to families so they can try new fruits and vegetables.
“It was important to me to bring our entire produce team together to make a direct impact with shoppers for this meaningful campaign,” said Mike Roberts, Director of Produce Operations at Harps Food Stores. “The team has something to get excited about and gives them the opportunity to interact with shoppers by encouraging families to add new fruits and vegetables to their baskets.”
The weekly celebration that will be running now through August serves as a way to build awareness with shoppers and offer them incentives to make healthier choices, like adding more fresh produce to their carts. According to a press release, Harps’ Produce for Kids campaign was established in 2017, and since then has raised 880,000 meals for families in need through local Feeding America® food banks.
Produce partners are also a key part of the campaign and are being featured on the back of the t-shirts worn by the produce teams to show shoppers the companies that are giving back to their communities. Additionally, partners will be highlighted weekly with ad support and recipes that feature their products.
The list of 2021 partners include include Chelan Fresh®, Crispy Green, Dole®, Eat Smart, Greenridge Fruit, Halos, Litehouse®, Michigan Apples, organicgirl, POM Wonderful, RealSweet Onions®, Red Sun Farms, River Fresh Farms, Sage® Fruit, SamSonS grapes, PEELZ Mandarins, Sunkist, Tasteful Selections, and Wonderful® Pistachios.
“It is absolutely inspiring to see the Harps team come together in this way and making a direct impact with shoppers,” said Trish James, Vice President, Healthy Family Project. “Our campaigns are individualized to make sense for each of our retail partners, and it’s been a blast implementing new and innovative ideas in Harps stores.”
Other marketing efforts taking place through the year include regular Facebook Live Cooking classes that will be broadcasted on both Produce for Kids and Harps Facebook pages. There is also a sustainability focused website offering ideas for families at home and highlighting partners involved in sustainability efforts.
As Harps continues to work alongside Produce for Kids and the Healthy Family Project, AndNowUKnow will keep you updated on ways to help the efforts.
CINCINNATI & MONROE, OH - Birds are not the only ones taking to the sky these days, as Kroger has turned to drone technology for its latest delivery pilot. The retailer partnered with Drone Express, a division of TELEGRID Technologies, to offer grocery delivery via the innovator's autonomous drones.
"Kroger's new drone delivery pilot is part of the evolution of our rapidly growing and innovative e-commerce business, which includes pickup, delivery, and ship and reached more than $10 billion in sales in 2020," said Kroger's Jody Kalmbach, Group Vice President of Product Experience. "The pilot reinforces the importance of flexibility and immediacy to customers, powered by modern, cost-effective, and efficient last-mile solutions. We're excited to test drone delivery and gain insights that will inform expansion plans as well as future customer solutions."
A press release explained that the pilot will offer customers flexibility as Drone Express technology allows package delivery to the location of a customer's smartphone not only to a street address, simply meaning a customer will be able to order delivery of picnic supplies to a park, sunscreen to the beach, or condiments to a backyard cookout.
Kroger is designing bundled product offerings ideal for meeting customer needs within the current weight limits for drone delivery, which is about five pounds. Using Kroger.com/DroneDelivery, customers can place orders and have them delivered within as little as 15 minutes.
"The launch of the pilot in Centerville is the culmination of months of meticulous research and development by Kroger and Drone Express to better serve and meet the needs of our customers," said Ethan Grob, Kroger's Director of Last Mile Strategy and Product. "We look forward to progressing from test flights to customer deliveries this spring, introducing one more way for our customers to experience Kroger."
Drone Express will commence test flights this week near the Kroger Marketplace in Centerville, Ohio. The flights will be managed by licensed Drone Express pilots from an on-site trailer with additional off-site monitoring. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this spring, and a second pilot is scheduled to launch this summer at a Ralph's store in California.
"Autonomous drones have unlimited potential to improve everyday life, and our technology opens the way to safe, secure, environmentally friendly deliveries for Kroger customers," said Beth Flippo, Chief Technology Officer, TELEGRID. "The possibilities for customers are endless; we can enable Kroger customers to send chicken soup to a sick friend or get fast delivery of olive oil if they run out while cooking dinner."
Be on the lookout for these little robots as drone delivery continues to grow in popularity!
BOSTON, MA, and ALEXANDRIA, VA - Always pushing the envelope when it comes to supply chain innovation, solutions company Tive has continued to advance in-transit visibility in exciting new ways. Recently, the company announced that it would be partnering with TransVoyant, a leader in global supply chain data fusion, business analytics, and actionable intelligence, to further innovate its Open Visibility Network (OVN).
“The biggest barriers to complete visibility for shippers are primarily around insight and data fragmentation across a multitude of enterprise systems,” said Krenar Komoni, CEO and Founder of Tive. “Once you add access to unique predictive insights that analyze and anticipate threats and disruptions resulting from a multitude of internal and external factors, sourced intelligently, and you’re now getting closer to 100 percent visibility.”
As many visibility journeys begin by focusing on a single segment of the supply chain, this can minimize visibility into events occurring at later points in the process and create blind spots in the supply chain that become problematic for shippers as they rely on inbound materials. According to a press release, the Open Visibility Network combines Tive and TransVoyant’s capabilities to help bypass these challenges.
Together, the companies will use Tive’s real-time-in-transit load sensing data combined with TransVoyant’s abilities to deliver immediate value to the global supply chain.
"Supply chains that rely on latent status updates from legacy communication methods and networks, including EDI transmissions, are no longer competitive," said Dennis Groseclose, CEO of TransVoyant. "Poor predictability is forcing supply chain leaders to carry excess buffer stock and make bad inventory allocation decisions, and prevents them from confidently promising inventory in-transit while quoting accurate delivery ETAs to customers. Furthermore, no ability to predict the behavior that causes shipment delays and supply chain disruptions—weather, port congestion, traffic behavior, natural disasters, road construction, labor unrest, etc.—are undermining supply chain performance. By continuously collecting, cleaning, and normalizing live global supply chain data and applying predictive analytics, our solution attacks supply chain latency, limited line of sight and predictability while enabling firm customer order commitments, optimized global inventory, and minimized logistics costs."
Tive's Solo 5G trackers stream location, temperature, light, shock, and other vital real-time load sensing data to the Tive Data Cloud, while TransVoyant applies advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to real-time event data streams to create a live global picture of customers’ static and moving assets.
Additionally, the company produces insights that enable customers to anticipate and avoid threats and disruptions to improve their end-customer experience.
As companies like Tive continue to make strides in advancing the supply chain and other aspects of the fresh produce industry, AndNowUKnow will keep an ear to the newswire for the most recent updates.
PHARR, TX - Officers at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Field Operations (OFO) at the Pharr International Bridge cargo facility made significant progress in mitigating the presence of illegal activities in the produce industry this past week. With a swift plan of action, the CBP uncovered two separate, unrelated shipments of methamphetamine and marijuana, which was valued at $8,348,000, discovered within commercial shipments arriving from Mexico.
“Our officers definitely rose to the challenge by detecting these narcotics loads in two separate commercial shipments at our cargo facility,” said Port Director Carlos Rodriguez, Port of Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas. “As daunting a task as this may seem, our officers are able to effectively balance processing lawful trade while maintaining a robust enforcement posture to advance our border security mission.”
The first seizure occurred early on April 28 after CBP officers encountered an empty tractor/trailer. A secondary examination that included a non-intrusive imaging (NII) system inspection allowed the officers to detect packages of suspected narcotics concealed within the trailer. Officers removed a total of 1,641 packages containing alleged marijuana and weighing 624 pounds (282 kg), which are valued at $125,000.
Hours later, officers referred a tractor/trailer hauling a commercial shipment of fresh strawberries for further inspection and ultimately discovered 177 packages of alleged methamphetamine concealed within the boxes of strawberries. These bundles of narcotics weighed 411 pounds (186.5 kg) and are valued at $8,223,000, a press release stated.
CBP OFO seized all of the narcotics. Both conveyances and the cases remain under investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
AndNowUKnow will continue to cover the latest in drug busts as they pertain to the industry.
NEW ZEALAND - As it continues to build out its global footprint, T&G Global reported that its New Zealand apple exports are on track to arrive for the China and Southeast Asian markets. The ships carrying 28,000 cartons of Envy™ apples left the Napier port toward the end of April, a success for T&G Global after fighting challenges.
“Our orchard and post-harvest teams are pulling out all the stops to pick and pack our Envy crop this season,” reported Craig Betty, Director of Operations, who also noted that the company expects to export a high-quality crop. “We’ve had university students pitching in and working alongside our local seasonal team and Recognized Seasonal Employer (RSE) workers. In addition, 45 of our office-based team, known as the 'Envy Army' are working part-time shifts at our Hawke’s Bay packhouses to ensure our premium Envy apples get to consumers in key global markets.”
According to a release, T&G will ship approximately two million cartons (200 million apples) of New Zealand grown Envy to consumers in 60 countries. The week of April 21 marked the beginning of a busy shipping schedule for the 2021 apple crop, which over the coming weeks will depart from both Napier and Nelson Ports.
Last week, T&G also air-freighted Envy to China and Malaysia in time for new season retail programs.
“As our mornings get cooler in New Zealand, we’re seeing a strong and vibrant color coming through and a high proportion of high-grade fruit being packed,” Craig added, explaining that 70 percent of the crop has been harvested.
As demand for Envy apples grows, T&G is stepping up plantings in both hemispheres to meet increasing consumer demand. New Envy plantings over the coming years will produce another 10 million cartons by 2030.
Is Envy on your list for summer apple programs? Don't miss out on the craze.
SOLEDAD, CA - This month we celebrate one of humans’ greatest creations—salads. Officially named National Salad Month, shoppers will be popping up like spring flowers all throughout May to indulge in creative and unique salad recipes. To help retailers capitalize on this growing excitement in the category, Braga Fresh Family Farms has announced the launch of three new Josie’s Organic premium salad kits: Lemon Herb, Spring Blush, and Rustic Tomato.
“The Braga team focused on creating three very different organic salad kit offerings by using unique components such as shaved fennel and newer baby green varieties that have more crunch and loft,” said Kori Tuggle, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development.
The new Josie’s Organics Lemon Herb salad kit features a mix of baby lettuce, arugula, shaved fennel, Parmesan cheese, and brioche crouton crumbles paired with a lemon herb vinaigrette dressing, as explained in a press release.
“The shaved fennel is a unique component for the salad kit category that gives consumers flavor and layered texture to the salad,” explained Tuggle.
The Spring Blush salad kit, on the other hand, contains spring mix, candied walnuts, feta cheese, and dried cranberries served with a red wine vinaigrette.
“Our Organic Spring Blush has a sweeter, lighter flavor profile with universal appeal,” Tuggle added.
The last member of the newly launched trio, Josie’s Organics Rustic Tomato salad kit, features salad greens with delicious Parmesan cheese, crispy onions, garlic croutons, and roasted garbanzo beans, topped with a sun-dried tomato dressing.
“With five kit components, the Organic Rustic Tomato salad kit eats like a full meal and is filling,” said Tuggle.
All three of these unique and delicious organic salad kits are available now, so don’t wait to tempt your shoppers with these new offerings all month long.
HOUSTON, TX - No matter what position you hold in this industry, people are at the center of all that we do. This is exactly why Sysco has made a key play in fortifying its Human Resources department, as the industry ally has recently announced the appointment of Ron Phillips as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer.
Prior to joining Sysco, Phillips served as Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Retail, Omnicare, and Enterprise Modernization at CVS Health, according to a press release. Before working with CVS Health, Phillips held the position of Chief People Officer for Carnival Cruise Line, during which he led the global people strategies for over 40,000 employees.
Phillips has also held leadership positions at New York Presbyterian Hospital System, where he led HR strategic direction for the enterprise as Chief Human Resources Officer, representing 23,000 employees across seven major hospitals.
Phillips officially takes over the new role on May 3.
“I am very pleased to welcome Ron to Sysco. He is a proven HR executive with more than 25 years of experience and a track record of leading high-performing teams and consistently delivering results and transformative change through people-first strategies,” said Sysco President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Hourican. “His demonstrated expertise across a broad range of strategic functions including people strategy development, diversity and inclusion, talent and performance management, culture-building, and engagement uniquely position him to lead Sysco’s global HR organization as we continue to transform our company and further position Sysco as the employer of choice."
What will we see from Sysco next as the company continues to bolster its already impressive leadership team? Stick around to find out.
ONTARIO, CANADA - If I were a buyer, fresh produce would be my very best friend when it comes to merchandising. Fruits and vegetables present such a wide variety of flavors, making the produce aisle the perfect destination for promoting food-centric celebrations. With Cinco de Mayo nearly upon us, I was eager to hear what we can expect from Catania Worldwide’s tropical programs.
“Catania is expecting great quality on our tropical items,” said VP of Sales and Marketing James Rasmussen. “April was a pretty high month for pricing on limes, and we suspect that will continue through the Cinco De Mayo pull, especially on larger fruit. There will be promotional volumes on the smaller sizes, which is perfect for this holiday. Avocados will also be promoted heavily with great quality, and the same goes for mangos and figs.”
As James pointed out, demographics are changing rapidly, and the consumer's awareness of Hispanic products is becoming more mainstream, meaning Cinco de Mayo has become a very important holiday at retail.
“Retailers are learning to treat this holiday similarly to the Fourth of July, with large displays of fresh produce for the picnic and party atmosphere,” James told me. “Hispanic cooking is based around fresh, with very little processed ingredients, and this leads to big, full displays in the produce department.”
When building displays, retailers can utilize popular Cinco de Mayo recipes to bring several ingredients into a single location. Fresh guacamole, for instance, creates an opportunity to bring together avocados, limes, onions, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, jalapeño, and other various peppers all in one area to entice the consumer to grab and go.
“Salsas, guacamole, and unique drinks will be on many shopper’s menus, so these are some of the most important recipes for retailers to highlight in their displays,” James concluded.
So, what will make your produce department the stand-out destination for shoppers? It may be some fresh fruit from Catania Worldwide, but we’ll have to wait and find out.
WASHINGTON, DC - Earlier this week, President Biden addressed his commitment to solving a pressing industry challenge as he called on Congress to pass bipartisan immigration reform. This includes a clear path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, especially dreamers and farmworkers. In response, United Fresh Produce Association recently weighed in on President Biden’s comments.
“United Fresh Produce Association and its members thank President Biden for his leadership in recognizing the grave importance of reforming our immigration laws as they relate to our agricultural workforce,” said United Fresh's Senior Vice President of Policy, Robert Guenther.
This reform will create an earned roadmap to citizenship for undocumented individuals, promote immigrant and refugee integration and citizenship, protect workers from exploitation and improve the employment verification process, and grow the economy, according to an article from The Hill.
“By raising the importance of passing the agricultural immigration reform during his address to the nation, President Biden has made it crystal clear that this issue, which has vexed agriculture for decades, can and must be addressed immediately by the U. S. Senate in the same bipartisan manner that enabled it to pass the House of Representatives,” Guenther continued. “United Fresh looks forward to continuing to work with the Biden administration and the Congress to have meaningful immigration reform signed into law this year.”
AndNowUKnow will keep a pulse on the newswire for what happens next, so be sure to keep a tab open.
SOUTH CAROLINA - The Southeast Produce Council (SEPC) recently announced that the South Carolina Governor’s School for Agriculture at John de la Howe will establish a new ag program called the Eubanks Farm. It was created in memory of Martin Eubanks, the former Assistant Commissioner of Agriculture at the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA), who passed away in January 2020 and served the SCDA for a total of 33 years. The SEPC encourages supporters to donate to the nonprofit Advocates for Agriculture, which will fund infrastructure, equipment, and operating costs for the Eubanks Farm.
“Martin Eubanks was very instrumental in forming the SEPC. The vision of creating a platform where buyers from the Southeastern states could connect with fresh produce shippers from all regions and create a consistent supply for customers in our marketing area, as well as bring buyers from other regions to connect with Southeastern growers, was the driving force of the founders of this organization,” David Sherrod, President and Chief Executive Officer of SEPC, said in a statement obtained by ANUK. “Martin was a tremendous asset in making many of those early connections by bringing in both the growers and buyers that became our charter members. I am proud to be able to contribute seed money to help start the Eubanks Farm to honor the legacy of our dear friend. I applaud the SCDA and Commissioner Hugh Weathers for their work in this great honor for Martin.”
As stated in the SEPC’s release, this on-campus commercial fruit and vegetable operation will provide hands-on horticulture experience for students to prepare them for a future career in the produce industry through the use of state-of-the-art equipment and technology.
John de la Howe is a recently re-established high school for agriculture, accepting students from all over South Carolina and neighboring states. The school will focus on providing unique and challenging agricultural education utilizing its 1,310 acres of forest and farmland.
“Martin was part of the original group who was instrumental to the Council as they planted the seeds which became the SEPC,” Harold Paivarinta, Chairman of the Board at SEPC, and Director of Sales and Business Development at Red Sun Farms, said to ANUK. “Through his engagement and passion to our great industry, Martin saw the Council grow and prosper to the level it has achieved thus far. It’s only fitting the SEPC demonstrates our appreciation to Martin, the entire Eubanks family, and the SCDA through our support in the establishment of the Eubanks Farm.”
To make a donation to the Eubanks Farm Memorial Fund, make checks payable to SC Advocates for Agriculture - Eubanks Farm, and mail to 901 Main Street, Suite 1225, Colombia, South Carolina, 29201.