Teleconference - More victims, no "answer"

The FDA/CDC reported today in the press teleconference that the number of victims associated with the salmonella outbreak is now 383 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The most recent onset date of illness from salmonella saintpaul is June 5.

"We don't believe the outbreak is over." one CDC official said.

Nothing new on the investigative front; FDA officials continue to talk to health officials in Florida and Mexico,

"We're going flat out," said David Acheson of the FDA. Optimistic but realistic - the agency is beginning to reduce expectations investigators will find the farm or packing shed associated with the outbreak.

When a reporter asked him about whether the agency wants mandatory preventive controls for tomatoes Acheson said the FDA is waiting for legislative authority to do just that.

To surf the net is to suffer fools

Guest blogger Lance Jungmeyer here ...

The Internet is a great place. I'm glad you could join us here to discuss fresh produce.

The Internet is also a place for losers and fools. Luckily, these types are pretty quickly outed. Still, to surf the net is to suffer fools.

To wit, this blog on Discovermagazine.com is downright foolish. It links the incidence of salmonella in tomatoes to global warming. I'm not kidding.

The author relates how he interviewed someone from Food and Water Watch, and how this individual speculated that because of climate change and the need to grow more produce on less land, that GMOs were being planted. Further, the blog states that GMO strands will somehow cause more outbreaks.

Of course, fresh GMO tomatoes were a market failure and no one is selling them now, to my knowledge.

At any rate, many Web users roundly ridiculed this blogger for being full of it. Here are some samples:

"What a bunch of hogwash! There is no link between GMO and the current outbreaks of salmonella! Were you educated in a barn?"

"WHY EVEN PRINT THIS B.S."

"They don’t even know the source yet the gullible warming crowd is out there throwing blame around. They are certainly consistent about jumping to conclusions. Now if we can just get them to wake up to the fact they keep jumping to the wrong conclusions we might be able to save the economy. This is unacceptable fear mongering, plain and simple."

"Maybe it is the space aliens who are idling their space rocket engines for too long while they orbit the planet that are causing global warming. And to make matters worse, what if they are secretly pooping on our tomatoes?"

At least the general public can stand up against nonsense "journalism."

The spouting whale

While many environmental/sustainability groups are calling on retailers to use their leverage on suppliers to bring sustainability to the forefront, the feeling now at the FMI Summit is that retailers are just starting their own initiatives and aren't ready to take on - or perhaps take along - their suppliers.

During one question and answer session today after a presentation by a retailer panel, there were a couple of extremely relevant questions:

Have retailers been able to measure the impact of sustainability activities (such as LEED energy certification of stores) on their top line revenues? Short answer - not yet. the many variables of retailing make such measure problematic. Right now, perhaps the best measure of sustainability are sales of reusable bags.

Another great question: what do retailers want from suppliers relative to sustainability and how much will they pay for it?

Again, no solid answers on this, but one retailer noted his organization was wary of blowing its own horn too loudly about sustainability, observing that his organization has a saying, "It is the spouting whale that gets harpooned."

Retailers are moving on sustainability, but they don't want to be accused of being opportunistic. Most suppliers don't need to worry just yet about mandates from their buyers regarding sustainability, although they need to be engaged in conversations about what retailers are thinking relative to agricultural water use, which is considered the next "hot button" issue in the context of sustainable agriculture.

One thing is certain; momentum for the issue is increasing and staffing levels for sustainability are headed higher for many chains. The subtitle of the conference; Sustainability: tipping point or tidal wave - suggests that "short lived fad" is not an option. Indeed, as more and more retailers have top level buy-in, internal and external expectations will only grow.

Curses!

So I’m on hold with a customer, and my cell rings. It’s my next-door neighbor, a health insurance broker who works out of his home office.

“You busy?”, he begins.
“On hold with a guy. What’s up?”
“Gotta tee time for Saturday. Not too early either.”
“Good. I’d like to sleep in for once---“

Before I can finish that sentence, my customer comes on to the line & immediately launches into a diatribe about having to accept returns from his customer because of the perceived salmonella scare, and not being able to say boo about it. I agree with his plight, and the dialogue gets animated & colorful, as it will with two guys who’ve known each other for 30 years discussing situations totally out of their control.

Within a minute or two, he’s gone, and I’m back to my neighbor, who has heard my side of the conversation with my client. He’s flabbergasted.

“What… can you…be thinking?”, he starts, dramatically.
“Excuse me?”
“You dropped the f-bomb on that guy!”
“I did? Oh, I guess I did. Hey, you should’ve heard him. But, Edwin Newman, I used it as an adjective. I didn’t call him one, which would be a noun, and counterproductive besides, even if it might be true.”
“Man, is my business different than yours or what?”

And it is. While the language and slang of the produce business overall has gentrified somewhat in the last few years, engaging in the lively art of conversation these days requires a lot of thought, and knowing to whom you’re speaking.

Sometimes I think my terminal market boys learned their craft from Andrew 'Dice' Clay, and in times of stress when talking to them (and we’ve had our fair share of them lately), I will confess that I occasionally retreat back to the pit curse-wise. My dad, a tomato broker from the 1950’s to his retirement in the late eighties, would not agree with my choice of words & wouldn’t have liked it one bit. I remember being totally amazed at his self-control when speaking to customers. Anger and the rare s-word were almost scripted, and always for a specific purpose.

With the young foodservice types nowadays, they come out of business school full of numbers, projections…and nice language. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but there will come a day, during a time of famine, pestilence or locusts. They will want very badly to curse out those locusts, and they will not be able to do so because their schooling told them not to.

That’s when they’ll explode into a million little pieces. I like my way better.

Later,

Jay

Sustainability - what's the meaning of this

Lots of take home from the FMI Sustainability Summit:
Some themes to explore: greenwashing, FTC regulation of sustainability claims, carbon footprint, the rise of water as the new environmental issue, getting sustainability into the corner office, trustology (the relative merits of certifying agencies), the rise and fall of plastic bags, why consumers don't remember to use their reusable grocery bags, what will be the sustainability standard for fresh produce growers (a start toward a new standard is afoot), the surprising carbon footprint implications of refrigerants at supermarkets, possible cap and trade legislation for carbon credits...

Obviously, much to explore. Some of it will make it into The Packer coverage this week, and other story lines will be developed on the blog. I have a ton of powerpoint presentations from the Summit; I expect I'll embed at least a couple in the blog later this week.