by Kevin Payne | Jul 17, 2018 | Freshness Management
Proactive planning in the fresh food supply chain has a lot of similarities to playing football. In a matter of weeks, football season will be upon us; players will begin drills, running routes and studying the playbook. You’ll see multiple key elements to every play: offense, defense and the clock. Racing against the clock, the offense aims to be proactive and move the ball downfield while the defense tries to stop them from accomplishing their goals. What are some of the valuable lessons football offer those of us in the fresh...Continue Reading...
by Kevin Payne | Jul 10, 2018 | Freshness Management
What is freshness capacity for produce and what do cell phones have to do with it? You look at your cell phone and the battery indicator says it’s about half-charged. How long will the battery last? An hour? A day? You don’t know because it all depends on how the phone is being used. The average cell phone battery charge will last a single day, given normal use. But what about fresh produce? If you’re just texting, the battery might last the rest of the day. If you’re watching videos or playing a compute-intensive game, it might...Continue Reading...
by Kevin Payne | Jul 3, 2018 | Freshness Management
If you’re in my age group, this week’s blog title may take you back to the Fleetwood Mac song from their iconic Rumours album and you may wonder what it has to do with poor quality produce. Well, I’m not going back to 1977 and I’m also not going back to a particular grocery store. Why? Because the produce I purchased there was horrible. Poor Quality Produce: My Shopping Experience I had just returned from the United Fresh conference in Chicago and needed to make a quick stop for produce to get me through the rest of the week. On my...Continue Reading...
by Kevin Payne | Jun 19, 2018 | Freshness Management
No, I’m not talking about something a character from a 1970s TV show might have said. I’m talking about that feeling when you open your refrigerator in the morning to grab berries for breakfast and are greeted by raspberries that are growing beards and turning to mush. Premature food spoilage. How frustrating. No fruit for breakfast, and a $5 clamshell of raspberries is now going in the trash. More food waste. Premature Food Spoilage – Why Does it Happen? I’ll bet you’ve had this experience at least once. But have you wondered...Continue Reading...
by Kevin Payne | Jun 5, 2018 | Freshness Management
It’s June, and not only is the weather heating up, so is produce season! Fresh fruits and produce abound and retailers’ shelves overflow with nature’s bounty. Yet, on any given day it may be very hard for growers, processors, shippers and grocers to “Stay Cool.” For growers and processors, every day brings fresh challenges related to labor, weather, equipment and the progress of the crops themselves – they often have too much to harvest or not enough. Shippers and logistics providers struggle to find drivers with enough hours to...Continue Reading...
by Kevin Payne | May 29, 2018 | Freshness Management
Have you ever noticed how people sometimes keep doing things over and over even though the results keep turning out badly? For me, a good example would be home repairs. Whether trying to replace a faucet, change a light switch or install a security camera, you can count on me to break something, use the wrong part, lose one of the screws, etc. Yet, for years I continued to give it my best shot. This only served to frustrate me, irritate my wife and teach my kids the proper use of profanity. After years of poor outcomes, I finally...Continue Reading...
