Last Friday, PMA donated a salad bar to Downes Elementary School in Newark, Delaware, as part of the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools national campaign. You might recall last fall we created an online toolkit/user’s guide on navigating the Salad Bars to Schools website; we used that toolkit in our donation. There were a few new learnings/observations we experienced in the donation process, and I’d like to share them with you:

• Reach out to the school administration/district officials early. In the process of donating the salad bar, we discovered that Downes’ specifications required an electric salad bar (which cost slightly more than the standard salad bar listed on the Salad Bars to Schools website). If we had just donated the standard amount online, it would not have met Downes’ needs.
• Get creative in planning a donation event at the school. Here in Delaware, our minor league baseball team has a mascot called Mr. Celery (yes, I am serious. He really exists.). One of my colleagues has a contact with the team and was able to arrange for Mr. Celery’s presence at the school. The kids’ reaction when he entered Downes’ cafeteria was unreal, very rock star-esque.
• If you donate it, kids will eat. Going to the school Friday, I was a bit anxious as to how the students would use the salad bar and how it would be received. However, seeing lines of kids waiting to get salad quickly put those thoughts to rest.

Students from John R. Downes Elementary School enjoy the new healthful choices on the salad bar donated by PMA.

After the event, we saw Downes’ school garden (which we also helped fund through a local program). In all, it was a very produce-centric day and it left me with a better understanding of the salad bar process as well as how much the students enjoyed having fresh fruits and vegetables as a healthful option in their cafeteria.

If you’ve donated a salad bar to a school, tell us about it in the Increasing Consumption Community on PMA Xchange. And if you haven’t donated one, please do so. It is rewarding for the kids, the school, the community, and your organization. To see photos from the salad bar donation event, visit our Flickr stream.

We’ve been hearing that some shipments into the United States are being stopped as the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) enforcement of the rules about wood pallets is being stepped up. As you know, the United States implemented new rules in late 2005 to mitigate plant pest risk presented by the importation of logs, lumber, or other unmanufactured wood articles; this includes pallets.

As of September 16, 2005, the standards call for wood packaging material (WPM) imported into the United States to be either:

• heat-treated to a minimum wood core temperature of 56 degrees C/133 degrees F for a minimum of 30 minutes; or
• fumigated with methyl bromide.

The wood packaging material must also be marked with the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) logo and the two letter ISO code for the country that treated the material. The marking must include the unique number assigned by the national plant protection organization to the company responsible for ensuring the material was properly treated, as well as include either the abbreviations for heat treatment (HT) or methyl bromide (MB). Paper certification/treatment certificates is not required.

APHIS said that it had begun full enforcement on July 5, 2005, noting: “Shipments containing noncompliant regulated WPM will not be allowed to enter United States of America.” We are hearing that this is happening now, particularly for products coming from Canada into the United States.

There are exemptions: Wood packaging materials made entirely of manufactured wood material (e.g. particle board, plywood, oriented strand board); wine and whiskey barrels; or wood packaging materials made entirely of thin pieces of wood (6mm thickness or less) are exempted from the treatment and marking requirements. WPMs made of wood of Canadian origin are also exempted from the treatment/marking requirements; however, these materials from Canada will be inspected for pests.

This issue has global implications as well, because the introduction of pests associated with solid wood packaging materials is a worldwide problem. For this reason, there is a need to develop globally accepted measures that may be applied to solid wood packaging materials by all countries to practically eliminate the risk for most quarantine pests and significantly reduce the risk from other pests that may be associated with these materials. In the case of phytosanitary standards, the international standard-setting organization is the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). To learn more, visit the IPPC website.

For more information, check our transportation page (scroll down to Wood Packaging, Pests) or APHIS’ wood packaging page. To discuss this topic, visit the Global Trade Community on PMA Xchange.

In the most recent issue of PMA’s FRESH magazine, there’s an article about Colacion Sana – an effort created by our Chilean Country Council to provide students with a piece of fresh fruit for their morning break. This program reached more than 8,300 kids on a daily basis. Since the topic of increasing produce consumption is one we discuss frequently here on Field to Fork, I thought I’d share highlights from the story.

Chile Country Council member Manuel Alcaino was commissioned to organize a fruit-to-schools program based on donations from export companies and service companies. The municipality of Buin, a township close to Santiago, was chosen due to the concentration of various schools and its proximity to orchards and fruit companies. Colacion Sana has spread throughout 15 different schools in Buin and has the support of industry leaders and educators. Students are encouraged to increase their overall fruit and vegetable consumption in addition to the fruit they eat as their morning snack.

The council is presently working to expand the Colacion Sana initiative to additional schools, as well as work with government agencies and the Chilean 5 A Day program.

If you haven’t seen the most recent issue of FRESH, it is available via our website. It addresses topics such as inter-generational leadership in the workplace, sustainability, consumption challenges and opportunities, floral trends, and more. If you’d like to share your thoughts on the Chilean Country Council’s work, tell us in the Increasing Consumption Community on PMA Xchange.

And keeping with the theme of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in schoolchildren, within the next day or so here on Field to Fork I’ll share some details from our salad bar donation to a local elementary school last Friday.

In the most recent Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) update, I noticed there was a summary of the distinctions between the GS1-128 and Code 128 barcodes used in the produce industry to help alleviate industry confusion about the two. Since traceability continues to be a topic of interest on this blog, I thought I’d share this with you.

The GS1-128 barcode is required by the PTI to be used for trade item data for logistics units. The GS1-128 is a subset of the Code 128 symbology. The difference between the two symbols is: the GS1-128 barcode must include the Function Code 1 Character (FNC1) at the start of the data string. This allows the encoding of Application Identifiers (AIs) that “tells” the application what to expect next. The Code 128 symbology does not include the Function Code 1 Character or AIs and therefore, it does not meet PTI requirements.

In other supply chain news, PMA recently added an overview of the DataBar Online resource to our website. For those unfamiliar with it, DataBar Online is a tool designed for use by sellers and retail buyers of loose/bulk produce items using the GS1 DataBar (the stacked omnidirectional barcode formerly known as RSS).

The DataBar is a barcode used to encode a 14-digit GTIN (Global Trade Item Number). It will enable sellers of produce to communicate their GTINs and corresponding PLU codes to their buyers, and allow buyers to download this information into their Point-of-Sale systems to scan the DataBar on loose/bulk items currently labeled with Price Look Up stickers as opposed to having to physically enter the PLU code to identify the product.

For more details, visit the Supply Chain Efficiencies section of the PMA website.

During PMA’s supply chain-focused Fresh Connections in Philadelphia, attendees collaborated on identifying industry “game changers” and how to meet these challenges. In those discussions, several trends emerged, including global access to water. Recently on PMA Xchange, one of our Fresh Connections presenters (Joe Carella, who is managing director for the Thunderbird Global School of Management) shared a story about a trip to Italy, where he saw the need for water firsthand.

In his trip, he visited produce farms struggling with water availability issues connected to an unprecedented eight-month-long drought. He noted that the water issue is especially challenging for spring growers who rely on the traditionally wet months of January and February to provide adequate supplies. Since annual rainfall in Italy has been below average for the past 20 years, and in anticipation of a likely water shortfall next year, growers told Joe they plan to shift some production to drought-resistant crops.

Clearly water is a resource under constraint – both here in the U.S. (for example, read this USDA item on new collaborative efforts on agricultural water efficiencies in California) and around the globe. To continue the discussions begun in Philadelphia, Joe posed the following questions to Xchange members:

• What are the resources you envision will be most scarce in the next 5-10 years?
• What do you believe are the best options to try and address the resource scarcity you have identified?

If you have thoughts or ideas on Joe’s questions, please join the discussion in the Increasing Consumption Community on PMA Xchange.

Or if you prefer face-to-face interaction, consider registering for Fresh Connections: Sonoma. We’ve already confirmed the attendance of several key retail buyers from across the U.S., and registration is limited for this event – where both Joe and PMA Executive Vice President/COO Lorna Christie will be presenting.

According to Progressive Grocer’s Annual Report of the Grocery Industry, while it appears the deli/prepared foods section of the store is predicted to receive the most customer visits in 2012, the produce department is expected to be very competitive – with just more than 65 percent retail executives believing the department will see an increase in traffic. Last year the produce department trailed only the private label and meat/seafood sections in customer increases. While 31.9 percent of executives said they expect produce department customer traffic to stay the same as it was in 2011, only three percent said they thought it would decrease.

Respondents were also asked to rank influential in-store departments in terms of driving the most traffic with targeted promotions; the top five were:

• Meat/seafood: 54.4 percent (was 43.2 percent in 2011)
• Produce: 16.3 percent (was 22.2 percent in 2011)
• Deli/prepared foods: 8.8 percent (was 5.7 percent in 2011)
• Grocery: 7.5 percent (was 11.4 percent in 2011)
• Beer/wine: 3.4 percent (beer-only was ranked at 1.7 percent last year)

Concerning industry initiatives supported by their companies, retail respondents ranked category management as most important, followed by sustainability, diversity, promoting their company as an employer of choice, on-pack nutrition labeling, the Produce Traceability Initiative, geographic expansion, and GS1 DataBar. (Speaking of the DataBar, I’ll share some news about a PMA member resource on this tool Friday here on Field to Fork.)

PMA members who’d like to learn more about consumer trends are encouraged to visit our Consumer Research Center and the Increasing Consumption Community on PMA Xchange.

According to new research from the Organic Trade Association, the U.S. organic industry grew by 9.5 percent overall in 2011 to reach $31.5 billion in sales, driven by consumer choice. Of this, the organic food and beverage sector was valued at $29.22 billion, with organic food sales experiencing a 9.4 percent growth in 2011. The organic food sector grew by $2.5 billion during 2011, with the fruit and vegetable category contributing close to 50 percent of those new dollars.

OTA found that overall organic product sales growth of 9.5 percent continued to outpace total sales of comparable conventionally produced food and non-food items, which experienced 4.7 percent growth. The growth in organic sales is proof the consumer is willing to pay for value-added products.

I found OTA’s numbers interesting in light of what Progressive Grocer’s 2011 Produce Operations Report noted, and what PMA’s 2011 consumer study found. The operations report found organic fruits and vegetables represented 4.4 percent of produce department sales, while our research uncovered that consumer demand for organic is being trumped by “local.”

Among three different fresh fruit and vegetable product attributes we examined last year, consumers valued local fresh fruits and vegetables the most. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of consumers viewed local produce as important - this compares to 42 percent for locality or produce grown in locations well-known for its production (e.g., Washington apples, Idaho potatoes, California everything) and 29 percent for organic produce.

To learn more about our 2011 consumer study, visit the Consumer Trends Research Center and join the discussion in the Increasing Consumption Community on PMA Xchange.

Several publications have reported recently about an FDA study on how consumers wash (or don’t) fruits and vegetables, specifically tomatoes, bagged fresh-cut lettuce, and cantaloupes. The study compares consumer reported behavior in 2006 and 2010 (remember we’ve had several high-profile foodborne illness outbreaks during that time period). Almost all (97%) of the respondents who bought tomatoes washed their tomatoes. Great news; however, for those who bought cantaloupes, 57 percent washed them in 2006 but only 50 percent washed them in 2010 (prior to the 2011 outbreak, but after the 2008 outbreak). Why such a drop?

For bagged fresh-cut lettuce, 54 percent rewashed it in 2006, and 62 percent rewashed it in 2010. Interestingly, in 2006 65 percent believed most or all bagged fresh-cut lettuce is washed, but that number dropped to 59 percent in 2010. Food safety experts agree that consumers should not rewash bagged fresh-cut lettuce that has already been washed.

Few people are using cleaners or soaking these items, which is good. And almost three-quarters of those who wash tomatoes and cantaloupe rub it under running water. That’s also good. So some consumers are getting the right message about how to handle fresh produce, but not everyone. There is still a big job to do in terms of educating consumers about fresh produce handling at home. In mid-April, Lee blogged about a Partnership for Food Safety Webinar that also looked at the lapses in home produce safety.

The knowledge gap here may be that consumers don’t believe they need to rinse cantaloupe because they don’t eat the rind. Most rinse their tomatoes, perhaps because they know they will eat the skin. And more may re-wash fresh-cut bagged lettuce, putting themselves at risk for cross-contamination at home, because of the high-publicity outbreaks over the past several years.

So the question again arises: How can we help consumers understand (macro) their role in food safety and (micro) how and when to rinse fresh produce? PMA has been a long-time supporter of the Partnership, helping to develop the free fruit and vegetable handling information for consumers. You can use (and even customize) those resources to help get the word out to consumers: your family and friends, your employees, your community, your customers.

Share your ideas about this study, consumer behavior, and your ideas about getting word out in the Food Safety Community on PMA Xchange.

You may have seen information in last week about USDA’s Farm to School grants designed to improve access to local foods in eligible schools. In a release, USDA noted that President Abraham Lincoln created USDA 150 years ago: “At the time, there were farmers everywhere, but today that is no longer true. In fact, young children, increasingly removed from agriculture, are more likely to recognize corporate logos than carrot tops growing from the soil.” And you probably read about the remarks from PMA President and CEO Bryan Silbermann and USDA’s Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan on the need for new talent at all levels, in all skill sets across the fresh produce industry, rebuffing the idea that agriculture is not a good career choice. Many PMA members offer kids’ tours to their fields, packinghouses, and retail stores.

It is critical that we use a variety of paths to connect kids to agriculture – specifically to produce and where it comes from. Whether they experience it on a tour, read about it in classrooms, discover it by planting a garden (at home, at school, or in the community), or just eat something new at school or at home, kids need that link. They need it to understand produce flavor and healthfulness. And they need it to understand and respect the efforts required to get produce from seed to plate.

It’s warming up here in Delaware, and we’re seeing some real local products (don’t get me started on the “local tomatoes” we find occasionally out of non-local pickups). As local deals come on in most states and as they continue in the year-round production states, it’s a great time to think about how each of us can connect kids to produce. Everyone can play a role. What’s yours? Let’s talk about it on PMA Xchange in the Increasing Consumption community.

Last week, I shared highlights from a USDA report on its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), “Building a Healthy America: A Profile of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” The prior post looked at recipients food choices. The report also gives us some good information about where recipients buy their food and about recipient education. From the report:

“Most SNAP benefits are redeemed at supermarkets and super stores. In fiscal year 2010, 83% of benefits were redeemed in supermarkets or super stores, 6% were redeemed at grocery stores, and 4% were redeemed at convenience stores.

“At the end of fiscal year 2010, a total of 1,611, or 26% of, farmers markets were authorized to accept SNAP benefits. SNAP authorized farmers markets represented about 0.7% of the total number of authorized retailers, and farmers market SNAP redemptions accounted for 0.01% of total SNAP redemptions in 2010. However, these numbers represent a 263% and 49% increase, respectively, from the previous five fiscal years, and trends indicate that these numbers will continue to rise.”

The report also addresses USDA’s education program for SNAP recipients (SNAP-Ed), which advised them, among other things, to “make half your plate fruits and vegetables; eat whole grains, and switch to fat-free or low-fat milk products.”

What are your thoughts about the stats in the earlier post and the information here? Let’s talk about it in the Increasing Consumption Community on PMA Xchange.