Thankful.
By the time this column publishes, Thanksgiving will be on the horizon. For growers-shippers, all the extra holiday volume essentials (celery, potatoes, onions, parsley, broccoli, cranberries, herbs, sweet potatoes, green beans, carrots, green onions, Brussels sprouts, apples, grapes, etc.) have long been raised, harvested and shipped.
For retailer buyers, all the above will have either been received in their distribution centers or warehouses or are en route to the same. By this time, their reserve racking is beginning to fill to capacity; it’s full of fresh produce, like any time, but especially so for a holiday that is solely dedicated to faith, family and food (and football, many will interject).
Following the cold chain a step further, there are all the retail chains and the produce managers within.
So much has changed since my early days of working these loads and managing the intense full week prior to Thanksgiving. In some ways it’s easier today. Many chains carry source-wrapped lettuce, sleeved celery, ready-made bin displays and such that minimize added handling — all are welcome labor-savers at the store level.
In contrast, produce crews used to work long hours to trim, wash and band celery, for one example.
For a busy day of pre-Thanksgiving shopping, this meant prepping two or three pallets — or more. That’s a lot of trimming. Same went for head lettuce prep, crisping leafy greens and hand-stacking everything else.
Produce managers and their crews worked closely to make it all come together. In some stores, keeping up with the extra workload meant scheduling a person or two to work graveyard prep shifts. Not a popular move, but necessary.
Even with the labor-saving measures in place today, the overnight shifts are something worth considering to get a jump putting loads put away, building spillover holiday displays or setting the wet rack.
And because we all worked together so closely, in such intense shifts, in the mostly unglamourous daily grind, the aching muscles, the odd hours (and going home smelling like celery) are what I remember most fondly.
Related: More insight from Armand Lobato
Not so much the work, that is. The work was hard all right, and it always will be, I suppose.
No. It’s the people I worked with throughout the years, time that somehow morphed into decades. After earning a supervisory role, many of the managers and clerks I called upon in the stores were the same people with whom I shared many a late shift with earlier in my career, unloading trailers, packed full to the door with fresh product. Sometimes unloading as a team, sometimes manually if the power mule was on the fritz.
We didn’t work hard for the company. Not at all, really; especially recalling the absurd chain slogans, mission statements and such. No. we did our best for one another, like the “foxhole philosophy” of watching your buddy’s back while they watched out for you.
We enjoyed each other’s company, sharing lots of laughter. Sometimes it was quite the opposite, but we had our work system down as crewmates, managing all the details, getting everything cleaned, ordered, received, put away, trimmed, prepped and stocked.
Once, we had someone from another store helping us for a few days. He saw us meticulously following our daily routine of trimming and crisping the celery, which involved soaking in oversized prep sinks to remove remaining field dirt, banding, draining in tubs and staging inside the cooler until needed. Heavy work.
“You’re not expected to do that during Thanksgiving week, are you?” he said. “We just put it out, don’t bother to prep at all.”
We glanced at each other and answered confidently, “Especially during Thanksgiving week.”
It’s a bit cliché for this holiday message — and is about as sentimental as I get — but I am especially thankful for the clerks and co-workers, all true friends; those of us who rolled up our sleeves all those years while doing the grunt work. We worked our tails off together, yet with a strong esprit de corps, a genuine camaraderie formed getting the department dialed in, and taking solemn pride that we not only met but exceeded expectations.
A well-prepared holiday produce department to us was like our own jewelry counter, with the fruits and vegetables laid out meticulously, shining like so many rubies and diamonds in a case.
Except in our case, it was a bit more humbling. We all went home every night smelling of celery. And to this day, any whiff of fresh celery brings back only fond, rich memories of the experiences, the work — the people.
Armand Lobato works for the Idaho Potato Commission. His 40 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions.