United, PMA to meet in Chicago

TK: Credit Greg Johnson, managing editor of The Packer, for early intelligence of the upcoming meeting between United and PMA leaders: Here is the story, as it stands now:

Six members from each of the boards of the Produce Marketing Association and the United Fresh Produce Association and their respective presidents/chief executive officers Bryan Silbermann and Tom Stenzel will meet in Chicago on July 18, the leaders of the group said July 16. Silbermann and Stenzel released a statement July 16 that read:

There is a one-day meeting of PMA and UFPA leaders scheduled for this Wednesday, July 18 in Chicago. This meeting includes six board leaders from each association, plus the two of us as CEOs. This is not a secret meeting, and we of course intend to share information from the meeting with our two memberships at some point after the meeting. The general purpose of the meeting is as follows:
Both associations' priority is always to deliver the best value to our members, and our volunteer leaders and staff have been talking about ways to do that better. We are now exploring ways to enhance member value through collaboration between our two associations, although there is no predetermined endpoint such as merger. Rather, we are focusing on enhancing value to members of both associations and letting that guide our discussions. We hope this addresses any immediate questions, and fully explains the nature of the meeting.

Declining to characterize it strictly as a merger discussion, the leaders of the Newark,Del.-based PMA and the Washington, D.C-based United said it was part of an established dialogue between the two national produce associations.
“It is an ongoing series of discussions that the associations have had about how to work more effectively together,” Silbermann of the Newark, Del.-based PMA said in a telephone interview. “This is not a meeting with a predetermined end point.”
There will be six representatives from each association’s board in attendance, in addition to Silbermann and Stenzel. Silbermann said that the six representatives from each board would not be publicized.
“At some point after the meeting we will have something to say to the membership, but I can’t tell when that will be and I can’t even tell you what it will say because we don’t have a specific endpoint in mind,” Silbermann said.
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in this specific meeting; it’s not the first,” Silbermann said.

TK: There is no specific endpoint in mind, but the effort and expense to bring 14 leaders of the two associations together would indicate there may be some discussion of what a merger would be like. Tom Stenzel indicated that a previous discussion of a merger broke down on the issue of trust between the boards. Now the boards are more similar than they were a decade ago and perhaps it is the membership of both groups that must trust their leaders with this very important dialogue.