On the road to Minneapolis

I will be renting a car to drive to Minneapolis for some work on upcoming leadership profiles for The Packer on Monday. A few other irons are in the fire as well. I'm waiting on word from the United Fresh Produce Association (United in all future references) on whether they will allow a member of the trade press to participate in a fresh produce grade inspection training program at the USDA training center in Fredericksburg, Va. United is offering the training classes in conjunction with the USDA again for 2007. Amy Philpott said my request gave United a lot of things to consider. For USDA, I wonder if one is my recent criticism of Fresh Products Branch oversight of ousted training center director Tom Gambill.

This trend toward denying even trade press access to meetings - notably FMI's Dec. 5 summit on food safety - is an unfortunate development. Consumers need more openness, not less, from produce marketers And if the industry's message isn't told to the trade press, it will be that much harder to connect with credibility to consumers.