Consumer Demands Fuel Growth

This article by Jim Offner, Staff Writer, appeared in "The Packer," June 7, 1999.

For many in the produce business, packaging is often as crucial to a customer as the product it contains. As a result, an increasing number of distributors and retailers are getting into the value-added market.

“We get more and more requests for different value-added products,” said Glenn Beckham, produce manger for Allen Fresh Produce Inc., which supplies products in five states. A number of suppliers are beginning to place a heavy emphasis on value-added, making customer convenience central to their company’s ability to compete.

“We’re doing whatever they have difficulty doing at store level,” says Ed Delashmit, president of Sherman Produce Co. Inc., of St. Louis, Missouri. “We’re assembling fruit baskets they don’t have the labor to handle. We’re cutting, trimming, and packaging corn and other items they cannot be doing at store level. If they get short of labor, those kinds of value-added items produced at store level go out the window because they don’t have enough people just to get the stuff on the shelves.”

The right package is a sales tool, said Mike Roberts, produce manager with wholesaler Supervalu Inc. “I think the convenience is the major portion, but I think the visualization of seeing the mature product where it’s already been peeled helps,” he said.

Value-added and fresh-cut products also come with a practical advantage for people concerned with their bottom line.