David Marguleas, executive vice president of Sun World International, assumes the role of chairman of the Produce Marketing Association for 2018-19 at the upcoming Fresh Summit Convention & Expo in Orlando. Marguleas took time out to chat with The Produce News about how his 30-plus years in the produce industry can help bring extra value to PMA’s members.

The Produce News: What do you feel is the most important role(s) of PMA as a leading trade association in the produce industry, and how is PMA currently positioned to meet those responsibilities?

David MarguleasDavid Marguleas: I am excited to work with PMA’s board, staff and more than 500 volunteer leaders from across the supply chain to bring expanded and enhanced value to PMA’s five focus areas over the next year: demand creation, global connections, science, technology and safety, sustainability and talent. Of these five focus areas some of the highlights you will see us tackle in the upcoming year are in our efforts to measure, benchmark and establish consumption indexes of fresh produce and floral products. We will continue to strive to expand our global footprint, making PMA even more locally relevant. In science and technology, we will encourage the use of cutting-edge technology and leverage PMA’s food safety experience for the benefit of the entire supply chain. The Center for Growing Talent will continue to attract, develop and retain talent for our industry.

What do you see as the major challenges facing the produce industry during the next year, and how will you guide PMA as the industry confronts those challenges?

Our industry faces assorted challenges that PMA can uniquely help overcome, including food safety, a changing political and trading landscape and the innovative marketing strategies that can offset such barriers, and finally cultivating and retaining talent, especially amongst millennials for whom the produce and floral industry may not be top of mind. Consistent with our new strategic plan, we will continue to focus on ways to add real value to our members’ businesses and to provide the myriad tools required to increase consumption, provide networking opportunities for members throughout the global supply chain, to continue to bring young, fresh and talented people to the produce and floral industry, and, importantly, to make food safety a cultural imperative beyond what is required by government agencies.  

What major strengths and talents do you bring to the position of chairman of PMA and how will those strengths help advance the PMA agenda in the next 12 months?

During my tenure as a volunteer leader for PMA and in my capacity working at Sun World for the past three decades, I have had the privilege of interacting and working with countless people from throughout the supply chain around the world.  I have developed a keen appreciation for our diverse industry’s needs, within and outside of the U.S. and I am reminded of the extraordinary and unique role PMA plays in bringing this community together.

In the next 12 months, I’d like to leverage this global produce experience and further expand PMA’s global footprint. PMA now has strong representatives in most key international markets and provides even greater value through our regional Fresh Connections events in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, China and elsewhere.

Attracting young talent to the produce industry has been a major goal for PMA in recent years. How might you expand on these efforts during your term as chairman?

New talented people assure the future of our industry. More than 150 student career ambassadors from several universities who attend Fresh Summit and other PMA events throughout the year continue to fuel our industry and will bring technological savvy to our farms, restaurants, supermarkets, processing and distribution facilities.

During my tenure as chairman I will follow previous board chairs Jin Ju Wilder and John Oxford’s leads in encouraging our members to attract, retain and develop young people. Become a career ambassador, host a student tour, allow them to ask their questions and learn from them what you can. After all, our industry has just as much to learn from these students as they do from us.

There is sometimes a fine line between collaboration and competition in the produce industry. What guidance could you offer members who wish to advance causes that are beneficial to the industry while maintaining focus on their own businesses?

We belong to a highly competitive and intense industry but also one that greatly values collaboration. PMA embodies that spirit by providing volunteers with opportunities to work together for the industry’s benefit. The fine work that Bob Whittaker and his science and technology committee do around new technological innovations and food safety solutions and that Lauren Scott and her team are exploring around consumption metrics are examples of ways we can advance causes benefitting the entire industry.  

The number of industry trade shows held each year has increased dramatically in the past decade. What do you feel are the advantages of PMA’s events, especially Fresh Summit?

PMA’s events are designed to bring the industry together through in-person connections and conversations. Fresh Summit is the most well known of these events, closely followed by our foodservice convention, but I think that our Fresh Connections events have the potential to make an even greater impact with even more produce and floral professionals around the world.  These events are like mini Fresh Summits set up across the globe to address industry hot topics in the industry and to grow connections.  

As PMA changes, our new strategic plan directs us to take a bigger stage and play a bigger game. So much in our industry and the cultural marketplace around us is changing, so Fresh Summit is changing too. PMA knows that it can’t rest on its laurels, and we have to keep Fresh Summit, and the massive platform it provides our industry, relevant for the future.  

As a longtime member of the produce industry, who are three people you consider to be mentors to you and what did they teach you?

Being born into a longstanding three-generation produce family has been a great gift. While I have had the privilege of learning from and developing friendships with true industry icons such as Bob DiPiazza, Dick Spezzano, Harold Alston, Bob Backovich, Frieda Kaplan, Mike Aiton, Bob Igleheart, Al Vangelos and Bruce Obbink — many of whom I met through PMA — no one had a greater professional impact on me than my late father, Howard Marguleas, who founded Sun World and spawned a series of innovative products, processes and people along the way.

While he did not actively mentor me, he knew I was watching and learning from him as he built his produce empire and he knew I was watching and learning from him how he treated people and how he was unable to distinguish friends and executives from farmworkers and competitors. He was curious, relentless and honest. He was also an insufferable optimist — I suppose one has to be in this industry — confident in his enthusiasm that among other things the next season would certainly surpass the current one.