Sustainability efforts focus of PMA seminar
August 3, 2008
MONTEREY, CA -- Industry efforts to take steps to address the health and sustainability of the planet were explored in a seminar during the Produce Marketing Association's 27th annual Foodservice Conference & Exposition, held here July 25-27.
The seminar featured a three-person panel that tried to make the issue more concrete with examples of industry efforts toward sustainability. The panel also addressed public perception through surveys and anecdotal examples.
The panel consisted of Kathy Means, PMA's vice president of government relations; Keith Masser, chief executive officer of grower-shipper Sterman Masser Inc.; and Marc Zammit, vice president of corporate sustainability initiatives for Compass Group North America, a contract foodservice company.
Ms. Means identified sustainability as the way the fresh produce industry manages its businesses to register an overall positive impact on society through environmental, economic and social actions. She listed the vehicles through which sustainability may be influenced as crop production, resource conservation, energy efficiency, ecosystem protection, integrated waste management, packaging, and office and warehouse efforts.
The panel referenced a study conducted by The Hartman Group that found that 51 percent of consumers surveyed said that buying locally grown produce is important, while only 22 percent said that buying organically grown produce is important. The study also revealed that "sustainability" is not a household word: About 60 percent of those surveyed had a handle on the term.
Ms. Means said that consumer notions of food safety include the sentiment that buying produce at local farmer's markets means the food will be safe, when in fact that perception may not match reality.
Mr. Masser gave examples of steps his company -- a family-owned potato grower-shipper with eight generations of potato-growing history that farms more than 5,000 acres -- has taken in a move toward sustainability, such as fresh-water treatment and its potato dehydration facility, which can provide an outlet to potato growers in the eastern United States.
Mr. Zammit said that he likes to work with growers who are "too big to sell to farmers markets and too small for the world market." Such farmers in the middle "have disappeared at a fast rate."
"Produce is that first introduction of sustainability to the consumer," Mr. Zammit said.
Development of regional value chains, waste management, composting and supplier packaging were cited during the PMA seminar as important issues in the future, as well as the far-reaching issues of global warming and water as a diminishing resource.
The seminar featured a three-person panel that tried to make the issue more concrete with examples of industry efforts toward sustainability. The panel also addressed public perception through surveys and anecdotal examples.
The panel consisted of Kathy Means, PMA's vice president of government relations; Keith Masser, chief executive officer of grower-shipper Sterman Masser Inc.; and Marc Zammit, vice president of corporate sustainability initiatives for Compass Group North America, a contract foodservice company.
Ms. Means identified sustainability as the way the fresh produce industry manages its businesses to register an overall positive impact on society through environmental, economic and social actions. She listed the vehicles through which sustainability may be influenced as crop production, resource conservation, energy efficiency, ecosystem protection, integrated waste management, packaging, and office and warehouse efforts.
The panel referenced a study conducted by The Hartman Group that found that 51 percent of consumers surveyed said that buying locally grown produce is important, while only 22 percent said that buying organically grown produce is important. The study also revealed that "sustainability" is not a household word: About 60 percent of those surveyed had a handle on the term.
Ms. Means said that consumer notions of food safety include the sentiment that buying produce at local farmer's markets means the food will be safe, when in fact that perception may not match reality.
Mr. Masser gave examples of steps his company -- a family-owned potato grower-shipper with eight generations of potato-growing history that farms more than 5,000 acres -- has taken in a move toward sustainability, such as fresh-water treatment and its potato dehydration facility, which can provide an outlet to potato growers in the eastern United States.
Mr. Zammit said that he likes to work with growers who are "too big to sell to farmers markets and too small for the world market." Such farmers in the middle "have disappeared at a fast rate."
"Produce is that first introduction of sustainability to the consumer," Mr. Zammit said.
Development of regional value chains, waste management, composting and supplier packaging were cited during the PMA seminar as important issues in the future, as well as the far-reaching issues of global warming and water as a diminishing resource.
