Downsizing veggies

At the local Hannaford's on Sat., I noticed something that may be a renewal of a long term trend toward baby vegetables.  One repacker was offering baby collard greens, and another a 6 pack of baby cukes.  The collard greens offering seems an attempt at upscaling a long time southern favorite to trendy northern tastes.  The cukes may be more appealing to mothers who want to supply something healthy in their kids' lunch boxes.  Either way, it looks like the downsizing of veggies will continue.  I can hardly wait for micro cauliflower and individual serving butternut squash.  It's a brave new world.

Frustrating Friday

When markets fall and no one wants to speak with you, it brings me right back to those awkward high school dances.  The girls all want to dance, but the guys are either too shy or self conscious to ask.  The few guys who do are immediately the most popular with the ladies and the rest of us wind up in the corners imitating wallflowers.  The majority of customers are so afraid of being burned by rapidly falling markets they refuse to order, thereby causing the markets to fall even further.  It's the opposite of a virtuous circle.  More like a circular firing squad as shippers keep cutting prices to steal orders from one another.  The few buyers with cojones are able to buy the best labels at rock bottom prices and make friends of those shippers, while the rest of us head to the dark corners.  Now I know why I hated high school.

Fickle markets

Squash is hot, lettuce is cold.  So go the markets this morning.  A little cold weather in Florida has the brokers in Nogales dancing in the streets, while warmer weather in Yuma is depressing everyone from growers to truckers as lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower piles up in coolers.  Meanwhile, the vaunted market system has atrophied to the point where chain stores blithely continue with advertised specials planned 6 weeks ago when there is no product available and ignore piles of cheap produce because it is not in the plan.  When I first started in this business, a produce buyer had wide latitude to adjust prices and specials on the fly.  Cauliflower is unexpectedly cheap, then let's put an in-store special.  The squash you advertised for next week is frozen, no big deal, we'll promote potatoes instead.  This can do attitude has been replaced in most chains with a by the numbers mind set which assumes broccoli and spinach are the same as manufactured widgets.  In this bizzaro produce world, if the squash froze, you either buy against the account of the hapless grower or broker who guaranteed the availability, or you put up a sign in the produce dept. lamenting the vagaries of the weather and promising to do better at some unspecified time in the future.  Then raise the prices of some plentiful produce item to bring your bottom line into balance.  The grower or shipper then dumps trailerloads of whatever item was priced out of movement at retail and vows to not plant as much next year.  There are cordial relations between buyers and sellers, but the fundamental equation that obtained 25 years ago is now invalid, since the bottom line of the buyer has replaced the market driven system.  This disconnect is harming the ability of the American farmer to supply affordable produce to the consumer.  What needs to happen is to give the buyer the ability to change on the fly and take advantage of abundant supplies on the spot market.  Will it happen?  I doubt it, as long as buyers are treated as little more than button pushers, and growers are expected to produce advertised specials on demand, regardless of weather conditions.

Stupid weather

At 1 degree above zero here on the NCR, it is time to bow to the inevitable onslaught of a North Country winter.  The heavy duty coat, gloves and hat are now the order of the day, and the garden is an afterthought, seen through headlights as I leave and arrive home in the dark each day.  Fortunately, the seed catalogs continue to arrive and there is plenty of  time to dream of perfect summer days and gentle rains timed to mature picture worthy crops.  Meanwhile, the market for veg should start to turn around.  Freezes in the Southwest last week and Florida today should eliminate any surplus and spark the panic buying so near and dear to producers' hearts.  It should be interesting as we plow through January.

Our non-vegetarian society

I was informed in no uncertain terms by people who know that Americans are not going to vegetarian diets en masse anytime soon.  How stupid of me.  I guess the constant bombardment of the public by fast food hamburger ads and the whole meat is the center of the plate thing (I admit my own inability to break free from that paradigm) is hard for a vegetarian diet to counter.  The problem being most people perceive vegetables as something to be boiled, steamed or fried with minimal additions besides copious amounts of salt and or fat.  Even the Chinese traditions are overtaken by meat as a casual inspection of the average buffet restaurant bears out.  There are good vegetarian cookbooks out there, but it would seem a re-education program must be part of the solution to adding more vegetables to our diets.  Good vegetarian cooking also takes more planning and prep time.  With our increasingly on the go lifestyles, cooking is seen as a nuisance, not as the vital experience it should be.  What is more important than cooking and eating together as a family!

Weight loss and the veg business

Look around the next time you enter your office (not you Neil) and see how many obese persons you can spot in 5 minutes.  Chances are you will be surprised.  No, they are not all Walmartians, although the percentage of fatties rises exponentially in those precints.  All of these people are potential vegetarians.  The studies have been done, and weight loss goes hand in hand with increased vegetable consumption.  Weight watchers is a case in point (pardon the pun).  Their entire system gives each customer a maximum number of points worth of food to consume each day.  Most vegetables are 0 points, so you can eat unlimited portions of leafy greens, fruits and many other vegetables.  I have seen first hand that most weight watchers do not take advantage of this facet of the program.  Perhaps there should be a vegetarian weight watchers program.  It occurs to me as I write this there is probably such a program already.  We need to take such a program nationwide, touting the health benefits as well as the weight reducing ability of such a diet.

Resolutely beginning 2012

It's a quiet start to what should be a momentus year for the world in general and Casa Monzeglio more particularly.  Graduation, marriage, the 60s (as in age, not era) are all in the offing.  It should be very entertaining.  Meanwhile, the produce deal limps along as we start January, but that is not unusual.  People seem to hunker down as the winter picks up steam in the first month.  Comfort food is in vogue, and green stuff and fresh fruit may be healthy, but not what Northerners typically crave this time of year.  If you happen to be at a ski mountain, just check out the offerings in the base lodge;  chili in bread bowls, stew, and pizza are the most popular menu suggestions.  Somehow, they seem to have forgotten the broccoli and spinach, unless mixed with heavy cream and other artery clogging accompaniaments.  In the produce biz, winter is mostly something you get through, rather than an opportunity to push new products.  The fact that February is Potato Month should tell you everything you need to know about produce merchandising in winter.  Oh, and a Happy New Year to all.