ICE ICE Baby

Here is some context to Immigration and Customs Enforcement: From their Web site.

With the launch of the second phase of the Secure Border Initiative, ICE has initiated a strategic shift in the way it approaches employers that intentionally violate the law and knowingly hire illegal aliens by bringing criminal charges against them and seizing their illegally-derived assets -- rather than relying on the old tactic of administrative fines as sanctions. Last fiscal year, this new approach resulted in 127 criminal convictions, up from 46 the previous fiscal year. More employers are also being charged with money laundering violations, which can result in prison sentences of up to 20 years. Last year, a single ICE worksite enforcement investigation resulted in a settlement and forfeiture of $15 million, an amount that represented the largest worksite enforcement penalty in U.S. history and surpassed the sum of all administrative fines from the previous eight years. ICE seeks to enhance its worksite enforcement investigations with proposed additional funding. The Administration's fiscal year 2007 budget request seeks $41.7 million in new funds and 171 additional agents to enhance ICE's worksite enforcement efforts. Most recently, ICE brought criminal charges against seven current and former managers of the nation’s largest pallet services company and arrested more than 1,000 of the company’s illegal alien employees.


TK: The phrase "employers that intentionally violate the law and knowingly hire illegal aliens" is operative here. Employers who recruit illegals knowingly are headed for trouble. but are there degrees of plausible deniability built into a system that uses staffing companies and labor contractors? Plus, ag employers have no way of identifying legal workers through a bio-metrics card or any other fail-safe means right now.

48 of 600

If there is one detail that struck me the most about the story on the ICE raid on a Fresh Del Monte processing plant, it is 48 out of 600:
From an AP story:

According to an affidavit filed by Maximillian Trimm, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a check of employee records at one point showed that only 48 of nearly 600 workers at the plant had valid Social Security numbers.

The raid at American Staffing Resources Inc. offices at a Fresh Del Monte Produce fruit and vegetable processing plant was based on an investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Social Security Administration that began in January, officials said.
Separate American Staffing offices also were searched, along with a Fresh Del Monte office, officials said.


TK: What about the timing of the raid? Was it calculated to make a political statement, an exclamation point to restart comprehensive immigration reform talks? No, says Sharon Hughes of NCAE. She told me today that she thinks the raid was a continuation of a policy by the Department of Homeland Security to step up interior enforcement efforts."Over the past few years, we have seen doubling, tripling and quadrupling of the number of interior enforcement agents, and they are starting to use that manpower to check on operations."

For ag employers and processors with less than one in 10 workers with legal and legit documents, It may get worse before it gets better - and it may never may get better if Congress doesn't get moving.

Slotting fees in the news

Lance Jungmeyer chiming in...

Slotting fees ceased to be a dirty little secret long ago. Pretty much, the discussion has been in the open in the past few years, yet supermarkets still decline to publicly reveal the inner workings of slotting fees. And suppliers remain ever wary of alienating a key customer, or other potential customers.

In this Financial Times article, columnist John Gapper tries to shed more light on the subject.

Gapper derides the "sad state of many US supermarkets: their endless, pointless variety of cans and bags of processed food; their mediocre meat, fish and fruit; their posters offering a few cents off this and that; their general air of hopelessness."

He continues: "It is as if US chains, having opened up a lead over other countries, put their feet up in 1975 and whistled as they were overtaken in quality, variety and appeal by companies such as Tesco in the UK and Carrefour in France."

Gapper, a Brit, suggests that the U.S. supermarket scene will eventually look more like that in the U.K., where just a few chains dominate.

If that's the cure for slotting fees, for the produce industry's sake, God Save Slotting Fees!

U.S. grower-shippers have seen enough consolidation to last a lifetime. Although, you can bet there will be more consolidation.

Lettuce promotion a "hit" with the media

Lance Jungmeyer chiming in ...

The Washington Times touts Tanimura & Antle's iceberg lettuce/baseball tie-in for Father's day in this story.

If you haven't heard about this, the lettuce shipper has adorned iceberg lettuce cello packs with a baseball motif, complete with faux seams on the pack. Offered is a recipe for iceberg wedge salad. Sounds good to me.

The clever promotion is not without its critics. The article cites Phil Lempert of www.supermarketguru.com, who says: "I can imagine if a lot of kids are bringing their fathers a head of lettuce for Father's Day, they're not going to be very happy," he said.

If you ask me, produce marketers need to reach out more to men, who increasingly are handling more and more shopping duties for the family. Remember, if men aren't buying produce when they shop, the family isn't eating produce at home.

Maybe some marketers should rethink promotions that rely so heavily on reaching the typical 18-39 year-old mother of two.

Immigration headlines

Here is the Seattle Times coverage of the ICE raid at Fresh Del Monte processsing plant.

Here is Fresh Del Monte news release about the raid.

Coverage here on families of detained immigrants from The Oregonian.


Story headlined Immigration deal making a comeback? From U.S. News and World Report.

Chlorine study

This link reports about a study from the World Health Organization about the benefits and risks of chlorine.
From the report:

The Codex Alimentarius Commission has requested FAO and WHO for scientific advice on the assessment of the benefits and risks of the use of "active chlorine" in food production and food processing. The advice will be elaborated through the implementation of an expert meeting during 2007. At WHO, the Departments of Food Safety, Foodborne Diseases and Zoonoses, and of Public Health and the Environment are collaborating on this project, together with the FAO Departments of Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Fisheries and Aquaculture.
The main goals of this project are to consider the risk of chemical residues in products (excluding environmental impact), following the use of active chlorine for disinfection purposes in food production versus the benefit of lowering the risk of microbial hazards. The efficacy of active chlorine treatment needs to be considered, taking into account different treatment scenarios, different chlorine-containing substances and different pathogens and pathogen/food combinations. These considerations need to be based on current practices, as well as take into account proposed new practices, including the relevance and feasibility of potential alternative approaches.

TK: Chlorine is the old standby for dealing with microbial hazards on produce. How scientists see the "risks and benefits" of the chemical could spell more PR challenges ahead for fresh produce marketers .