Supermarket Executives See Food Safety as Consumer Issue of the 1990s : Health: The controversy over using chemicals in food production continues. Some believe the only obstacle to increased produce sales is further problems with food safety.
Successfully calming consumers fears over pesticide residues in produce is the key to increasing sales of fresh fruit and vegetables in the coming decade, a panel of Southern California supermarket executives told an industry gathering last week.
“It has been quiet for the past six months, but food safety will be the issue for the 1990s,” said Larry Cox, of Lucky Stores, at a luncheon meeting of the Fresh Produce Council, a trade group, at the Quiet Cannon restaurant in Montebello.
Cox was joined by representatives from several other leading food retailers including Ralphs Grocery Co., the Vons Companies and Hughes Markets. Interestingly, the panel was assembled to discuss the future of produce merchandising, but the discussion repeatedly turned to the food safety question.
(Public concerns over pesticide residues in food reached record highs during 1989, prompted, in part, by a report that indicated children were more vulnerable to these toxins than adults.)
“The only thing that can stop us from increasing produce sales in the 1990s--as we did in the 1980s--is further problems with food safety. We have to emphasize to the public how healthy produce is,” said Don Ikemoto of Vons.
Each of the four indicated that the farm chemical controversy continues and that supermarket companies need to help clarify the issue for their customers.
Much of the chains’ efforts in this area are directed at educating produce department managers and clerks to respond intelligently to questions about pesticide residues from shoppers.
“We have trained our people to answer food safety questions because it is a big issue that they have to address,” said Ikemoto.
Some of the speakers admitted, though, that more could be done.
“In the last year, (supermarket) produce managers’ knowledge of this issue has grown tremendously, said Cox. “But if we gathered 10 Lucky produce managers here there would be a variety of opinions on food safety and we need to work on (making that more uniform).”
However, the size of some supermarket chains, with hundreds of stores, makes it difficult to distribute a unified message to employees thus adding to the confusion.
“We have communicated a great deal to our produce managers and clerks about the food safety issue. But to get the message to everyone is a real challenge,” said Dave Ackerman of Ralphs.
One retailer warned that although it is important to make sure store employees are briefed on controversial issues such as pesticides it could be dangerous to mislead consumers.
“Sorting out opinion from fact is important. But if we are passing on information to our customers then it better be real close to accurate or you’re going to be in for some real embarrassment down the road,” said Roger Schroeder of Hughes Markets. “The more we can do to let people know that produce is good for them, then the more fruit and vegetables we will sell.” The produce executives also discussed several other issues involving produce sales. One said the chains could do a better job in maintaining the appearance of their produce sections.
“We need the professionalism of 25 years ago in the produce counter,” said Cox. “We are not doing as good a job as we have to in order to sell more product. There is room to grow. . . . I wish we could find a way to put out consistently fine presentations-not just in our best stores-but in all of our stores.”
Even so, Cox said that supermarkets today offer more variety of fruit and vegetables in better condition and at better prices than ever before.
Several speakers also bemoaned the labor shortage that continues to hurt the food retailing industry. At a time when the public seems to want more personal service from stores there are not enough employees to properly staff the markets.
“I wish we could better tap into the labor market because most of our problems are labor driven,” said Ackerman.
However, Schroeder said that it was unlikely the major supermarket chains would greatly increase store personnel because of profit considerations.
“More labor in the stores? I don’t see that happening,” he said.
And if the grocers did not have enough to worry about with food safety and labor shortages, they were also taken to task by Karen Caplan, the president of the Fresh Produce Council.
“There is not enough creative selling being done today,” she said. “We need to be more creative because we are getting a little lazy.”
