Don't Hold Your Breath

As I decompress, much like Messrs. Armstrong, Aldrin & Collins, from fun & necessary family time at the Maine cottage, I've been catching up with Tweets from bloggers & blogs from twits. Drivel for the most part.

However, one missive that rang true was from the erstwhile Tom Karst on August 6, entitled "God Help Those Who Don't Help Themselves". In this piece, Fearless Leader Karst accurately assessed that any facet of the produce industry that is expecting the federal government to ride in on a white horse and take care of promotion for us all--no matter what the commodity--might as well send that equine to the glue factory because that nag has a busted fetlock, or hoof, or whatever. Even on a matching basis, it ain't gonna happen.

I suppose in some constricted, convoluted way, produce promotion could garner federal dollars if pork-barreled to the part of the proposed Obama health initiative that champions a 'proactively active' lifestyle (read: increased produce consumption) to prevent disease & illnesses. But since the public option is now on life-support, to be eventually packaged as co-operatives funded by--surprise--the federal government, I'm afraid that the administration will have their hands full simply deciding on semantics & wording, and we'll be left to fend for ourselves, again.

The neatest part of Tom's post, though, was his relating of an apple marketer's remark hoping that a retailer could step to the plate with a coordinated effort, offering select commodities, rotating on a weekly basis, at below-margin prices to jumpstart not only the occasional glutted market, but consumption in general. Certainly, it wouldn't be in the retailer's best financial interests to take this initiative on, but having a rough idea as to what these chains spend on advertising annually, how far-fetched would it be to slip at least some of those expenses into the marketing budget? And then promote that feel-good, fuzzy stuff to its clientele & business partners, much like Macy's sending potential customers to Gimbel's in "Miracle On 34th Street". Even the bean counters might have a hard time nixing that.

Trying to find any type of win-win situation in an ailing economy is a tall order indeed. But Tom & the apple marketer might be onto something here...

Later,

Jay