Practical Fresh Produce Knowledge
Experience matters. To succeed and survive within the fresh produce system, a degree of practical fresh produce knowledge is vital. How else can one hope to build up sufficientexpertise? Three questions then come to mind:
- Where do I start?
- How exactly do I go about acquiring the knowledge I am seeking?
- What else might I need?
Where Do I Start?
You start where you are. Let me explain by way of a personal example. That's me in this photo. A younger version, who had succeeded in getting himself appointed as Head of Produce for a multimillion dollar supermarket chain, without having worked a single day in a supermarket produce department.
I had practical experience, alright, but as a tree & shrub nurseryman, as a garden centre manager, as a perennial plant grower and as the supermarket plant & floral buyer. That last role had allowed me to develop an understanding of the company's perishable product merchandise systems and its unique organisational and systems structure, but in order to survive I needed to urgently spend time in the stores. Not on photoshoots for magazines but to learn how to trim a head of lettuce, how to rotate and refill an apple display, how to grade the onion table and how to remove the spoiled apricots from display.
So I did!
How exactly do I go about acquiring the knowledge I am seeking?
Well, here is the first challenge.
- We know what we know.
- We know what we don't know.
- We don't know what we know.
- We don't know what we don't know.
Together, these four statements are also known as the Knowledge Matrix and everything that we consider to be knowledge, fits into this matrix. It varies from individual to individual, and also at a very personal level, depending on where exactly our individual interests lie and how we have generated knowledge to date.
We know what we don't know is the easiest knowledge gap to sort out. It "only" required resolve, opportunity, discipline and a couple of tools of the trade. I was not lacking resolve, I had plenty of opportunity, and discipline had never been a problem. The "tools" I needed consisted of a green apron, identical to the ones worn by store produce staff, and a store appropriate name badge that displayed my first name and nothing else.
Then I reflected on what I knew about those stores, and their managers, which stores were readily accessible to me, on the way to and from work. I could not disappear for days at a time into the stores network without this impacting on the job I was actually being paid for - managing the company's entire fresh produce operation. I realised therefore that I needed to invest some time of my own into this venture, involving earlier starts and later finishing times on a regular basis, and snatched opportunities when they presented themselves.
I needed a plan to optimise my store time.
To present a fully stocked, quality checked produce department with accurate price tickets and no empty shelves by opening time each day, is the result of getting many individual tasks and complete processes right every morning. These tasks also need to be coordinated. Processes are not always linear but have to be carried out in parallel. In other words, the ducks don't just need to be lined up, but they need to be flying in formation!
So I needed to pick stores and store produce managers who got that right most of the times. What's more, I did not want to broadcast my intent and generate audiences when turning up for my learning on the job sessions. I therefore needed the cooperation of produce managers who knew their trade, keep their own mouth shut and had their team members under control. Ah, and ideally these produce managers needed not to be intimidated by me, which was not an easy ask in a hierarchical organisation like a multi-branch supermarket chain.
I was able to narrow my choice of stores down to three. They differed from each other in three characteristics. These were location, size and produce manager profile. One stores was close to head office where I was based. One of the other two stores I had picked was on my way back to the office from the produce markets in the mornings. The third store was on my way home. In size, these stores ranged from the category "expanded dairy on steroids" to "fully fledged supermarket attempting to grow into the hypermarket model".
All produce managers were male at the time, there being a fairly solid glass ceiling in place that was not up for debate. With gender not a criteria selection open to me, I focused on weekly store produce department performance which I understood fairly well, years in the job and personality.
And then I started my personal practical fresh produce knowledge acquisition programme, hoping fervently that I could fly under the radar with this approach, for as long as possible.
What else might I need?
Well, there were two elements of the Knowledge Matrix that I had yet to tackle, by the time I was happy with the level of my newly acquired practical fresh produce knowledge & merchandising skills. These were the "we don't know what we know" and "we don't know what we don't know" components.
You can learn about my approach in those areas by following the hyperlinks above. (coming shortly)