Produce Marketing’s Hardest Lesson—You Don’t Control the Timeline; Phil Gruszka, Gruszka Consulting, Discusses Long-Term Results

BAKERSFIELD, CA - Perhaps the greatest irony in our industry is that we know how little we control, and still we try. Fresh produce, Phil Gruszka recently reminded me, is an endless cycle of patience, persistence, and perseverance.

“In fresh produce marketing, one of the hardest truths to accept is this: You don’t get to decide when the payoff shows up,” Phil begins. With over 25 years’ experience marketing food and beverages, including extensive expertise in both organic and conventional vegetable and fruit businesses, the Founder of Gruszka Consulting has seen his fair share of market wins and losses.

Growers, he says, understand delayed gratification better than most.

“You plant today for a harvest that will happen months—or years—down the road. Yet when it comes to marketing, many still expect immediate validation. A campaign launches, impressions roll in, and the first question follows quickly: Did it work? Was it worth the expense? Sometimes the honest answer is…not yet,” he shares.

That doesn’t mean it failed or wasn’t worthwhile. Instead, Phils says it means the marketing is doing exactly what awareness marketing is designed to do—quietly building recognition before demand becomes visible. As discussed in The Value of Persistence and Consistency in Produce Marketing, long-term impact is rarely the result of a single campaign. It is about showing up repeatedly with intention over time.

“Awareness happens before action,” he punctuates. “No consumer changes buying behavior on command; recognition comes first, trust follows, action comes last.”

The danger is of pulling your marketing efforts back too early.

“Your produce buyers notice more than you may realize. Marketing works upstream of sales. Expecting it to perform like a switch instead of a system can lead to frustration—and premature pullback. One of the most common mistakes is stopping just as momentum begins to form,” Phil points out, reminding me that silence accelerates commoditization, a theme explored in The Cost of Silence in Produce Marketing.

Counterintuitively, marketing consistency—regardless and maybe even because of the volatility of produce—reduces perceived risk in a supplier or grower. It signals stability, commitment, and long-term intent. In short, as Phil put it, it separates one company from another by building trust in the business relationship.

“Marketing isn’t there to replace quality—it protects it. Digital platforms matter not as vanity metrics, but as proof of presence and relevance, as outlined in Digital Attention Is Not a Vanity Metric. Patience is a competitive advantage,” he promises.

The thought Phil leaves me with is how the companies that win in the long term aren’t necessarily louder, they’re steadier. His challenge for your success in 2026 and beyond: Are you willing to let your marketing work long enough to do its job?