Not long ago a retail veteran, knowing I oversee The Packer’s Produce Market Guide, told me he always keeps one handy in his office because he can find anything in it faster than he can on his computer or smartphone.
I don’t run a produce department, but I know the feeling about that book. I can find anything quickly too.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Produce Market Guide is the 500-page magazine subscribers of The Packer receive in the mail every summer.
Want to know when cherries are in season? From where? It’s in there. What percent of total retail produce sales were organic in 2015? What are all the PLUs for tomatoes? What are the handling requirements for carrots? What are the nutrition facts for grapes? Who are some suppliers of cauliflower and what’s their phone number? How do you get ahold of a trade association?
You get the point. It’s all in there.
It’s a wonderful book and for the longest time, that’s the only way the produce industry could get all that information in one place.
Not anymore.
This fall The Packer, owner of Produce Retailer magazine, introduced producemarketguide.com, a website that has all the great info we have in the print PMG.
Well, almost. We’re still updating it, but it’s mostly in there.
We officially describe it as a comprehensive database with detailed information on more than 600 fruits and vegetables — including photos, detailed descriptions, production and shipping calendars, nutrition and sales data — plus the popular “Fresh Trends” consumer survey analysis by The Packer.
Already, its database is filled with 100,000 companies and 200,000 contacts. When completed, users will be able to search all a produce company’s products or search by a specific fruit or vegetable and bring up all suppliers separated by region. It will also incorporate The Packer’s Redbook credit score data.
And it’s all free.
Just like the print edition of PMG, it’s the produce industry’s most comprehensive business information source.
That produce veteran will likely continue to be the master of the print edition, but his successor may prefer the online version. We have it either way.