Boman, Wooten star in PMA Match Game

Call it an orientation, call it an ice-breaker, call it what you will, but the April 3 evening activity at the Produce Marketing Association's Consumer Trends '08: A Produce Solutions Conference was a winner. I'm Dan Galbraith, sections editor for The Packer, reporting from Newport Beach, Calif., and I feel privileged to have been seated at the same table with two of PMA Match Game’s stars, Patty Boman of the Giumarra Cos. and George Wooten of Wayne E. Bailey Produce Co. Not only did Patty come up with most of the "right" answers (answers that matched those of "produce celebrities" standing in for the likes of Charles Nelson Reilly, Richard Dawson and Fanny Flagg), but Patty also came up with some of the most clever responses. She wasn't the only witty one in the audience, however, as a couple of people came up with the same humorous response to the question, "Before mom serves her kids vegetables, she BLANKS them."Personally, I really liked the response, "disguises." It was smart, a bit funny and, sadly, true ... I'm sure most of us in the produce industry, although we hate to admit it, acknowledge that getting children to eat fresh produce isn't the easiest task in the world. George Wooten, whose company specializes in sweet potatoes, got his moment in the sun when the question, "Maybe we'd sell more vegetables to kids if the Dr. Seuss book had been titled ‘Green Eggs & BLANK,’” came up. Wooten quickly quipped "Yams." The word is awfully close to "ham," after all. :) For the newsier side of PMA Solutions' Day 1, please scroll down a bit.