The Peyton Manning of potatoes and BK's way

A couple of items that somehow escaped notice last week. One is the excitement in Oregon about a new potato variety, dubbed the "Peyton Manning of potatoes" but officially known as the Premier Russet. The supremacy of Idaho - and the russet burbank - are not challenged lightly. For now, we'll call the Premier the Eli Manning of potatoes and see how the chips fall.

In other news, Burger King declined a request by Coalition of Immokalee Workers that it pay a penny a more per pound for its tomatoes to help farm workers. Taco Bell agreed to the demand two years ago after a lengthy boycott.

From the South Florida Business Journal:


The company said its executives have met with CIW representatives more than a dozen times during the last year and a half and also met with religious groups who support the CIW and the Immokalee workers.
Burger King also said its executives even traveled to Immokalee to meet with the group's leadership and to view living and working conditions.
"We agree with the CIW that the workers' living conditions are, in fact, substandard, and we are sympathetic and concerned about the housing," the company said.
However, Burger King said it and its purchasing agent, RSI, do not have a direct relationship with any tomato grower or its employees. Instead, the company buys tomatoes based on best market price from tomato repacking companies.
"It is these repacking companies that have a relationship with the actual growers who employ the CIW," Burger King said. "As a result, we do not identify the specific growers, tomatoes or workers who pick the tomatoes that are used in our restaurants."
At the time Taco Bell acquiesced to CIW demands, that company used its own tomato-grower suppliers, which employed the farmworkers.

TK: Burger King would be better off in partnering with private foundations and other charitable groups to advance projects that benefit immigrant workers than agree to a CIW demand that has all the unsavory aroma of blackmail.

New weather stations added

You might note that I make minor modifications to the blog on a fairly regular basis. This past week I tried adding a feed from the "Marlerblog" - the Seattle lawyer who specializes in food borne illness lawsuits - but I found it too static for my liking. As we move closer to spring, I have added a few weather reporting stations, including Idaho, Washington state, New York and Michigan. I've also added a feed that gives details of epidemics, natural disasters, food borne illness outbreaks, etc.

It's great we are getting pretty broad international readership. Just within the last 100 visitors, we have had readers from Argentina, Spain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Canada and China. And, of course, the U.S.

If you have any thoughts about the blog or the links featured, feel free to pass them along as a comment to this post or to my email, tkarst@thepacker.com

Getting fresh

This story looks at makeovers at some of New Jersey supermarket chains.
It opens with a winner:

Call it "Extreme Makeover, Supermarket Edition."

The article notes that supermarkets are finding success in competing with big box discounters by focusing on their fresh produce department, often revamping the look and appeal of it to drive traffic.
Here is a passage that quotes Jim Hertel of Willard Bishop Consulting.

"The model for a lot of the big-box operators is to keep in-store labor to a minimum, and if you're not paying attention to produce, you are going to have bad-looking produce," Hertel said.
When done right, however, it can make a big difference. "The role of in-store execution is to make sure the presentation is appropriate, that the product is rotated," he said. "You really have to be working those areas. Most of the savviest retailers look at it as a marketing investment." If they can break even on fresh, it's "a way to drive traffic, a way to get return on equity. You bring people in," Hertel said.


TK: This trend of "breaking even on fresh" to drive traffic as opposed to viewing the department as a cash/profit cow is remarkable. I wonder about the extent of this transformation among retailers in reality.

Bee buzz

More coverage on the shortage of bees for pollination, this time focusing on the immediate needs California.
From the AP story:

Harsh weather across the country, pesticides and mites are blamed for killing off billions of bees needed to pollinate just about every crop throughout the year -- oranges in Florida, apples in Washington, blueberries in Maine and California's $1.4-billion-plus almond crop, according to some preliminary research by scientists with Pennsylvania State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The number of commercial honey bee colonies is less than half of what it was 25 years ago, said Maryann Frazier, a bee expert at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. A colony is defined as a queen bee and thousands of her workers.


TK: Again, there are more questions than answers. Speaking of the vulnerabilities U.S. agriculture, it is apparent that even the inauspicious honey bee is critically important in the balance of supply and demand.

China court denies "Washington" trademark

This story notes that the Washington Apple Commission lost a court battle in China to trademark "Washington" and its Chinese equivalent.
From the story:

The Washington Apple Commission, an industry association from America's northwestern state of Washington, applied between 2003 and 2004 to use "Washington" and its Chinese translation as its trademarks in advertisements and promotions for its apples, the Beijing News reported on Friday. But China's Trademark Office and the Trademark Appeal Board cut to the core and turned down the application as they were "the name of the U.S. capital and a place name known to the public", the paper said.


TK; I'm sure that the WAC wanted to protect its marketers from counterfeit apples labeled as Washington, which can be a problem in some Asian markets.

All about spinach

Here is a roundup of some the coverage about spinach and the leafy greens marketing agreement.
First the Monterey County Herald offers this perspective about the state marketing agreement.

The main point of tension seems to be between the state marketing agreement, with oversight by the state department of agriculture, or the plan put forward by state Sen. Dean Florez, who wants mandatory regulation of leafy green growers, enforced by the state's Department of Heath Services.
From the story:

Sen. Dean Florez, D- Shafter, who proposed legislation last week that would make many of the voluntary agreement's provisions mandatory, said the "smoke and mirrors" plan is insufficient to protect the public. Only 24 of 170 leafy green processors signed up for it, he said. That may account for handlers who process and ship 70 percent of the state's leafy greens, but he's "not too impressed either way."

TK: Florez calls the state department of agriculture a "tool of the industry." Such rhetoric can only hurt his standing and only politicizes an issue that all Californians should be together on.

More from the story:

Second-generation Salinas Valley grower Bobby Martin said he wasn't sure the marketing agreement would change the way 90 percent to 95 percent of the farming community currently operates. They're already meeting or surpassing the food safety practices the board is likely to pass, he said. Many companies, like Tanimura and Antle, have already given their growers a stricter set of practices they must follow in order to sell their produce to them, he said.
What the marketing agreement will do in the long run, he said, is create a set of standards for everyone in the industry. "When the metrics are finalized in two or three weeks," Martin said, "hopefully most of these companies will come down to those metrics and say, 'This is what we want from you.' Right now, it's all pie in the sky."

TK; There will be much more to dissect when in a few weeks when the GAP/GHP standards will be officially unveiled. When all the dust settles, buyers simply need to choose growers and processors in the marketing agreement.