Musings from New Orleans, United Fresh 2011

The USA is seeing a decline of prepared fresh produce- people no longer prepared to ‘trade time for money’

The growth of prepared fresh produce in food service slowed

Prepared Fresh Produce must focus on flavour, texture to re-ignite interest- add fruit, nuts, cheese to mixes

Rupert Murdoch- “not big beat small, but fast beat slow”

Fresh Cut Marketing messages

The United Fresh Fresh Cut board have focused on developing key messages to use on prepared produce to revive consumer trust and demand.

It determined the focus on image of fresh cut- image as not as nutritious or as safe as whole

Generic tag lines used by the industry- ‘farm fresh, table ready’ and ‘no waste, no mess, farm fresh’

Harmonised Standards

Harmonised GAP audits which combine Global GAP and national standards are due to launched in Sept then submitted to GFSI

Traceability

Many suppliers of traceability software provided this from a label on a product back to field level eg PTi.  The fresh produce industry has mostly given up on RFID for fresh produce due to the water content being too high

Contact PSI to find out more