North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[<dwoodard@becon.org>]

An unappreciated complication is that the supermarket chains have 
central warehouses through which usually everything has to flow. The 
warehouses are often owned by a different corporation and I surmise that 
the financial organization requires that some of the profits (maybe 
most) be made by the warehouse entity. I suppose this is partly to guard 
the profits from union demands, maybe so that they can better be routed 
offshore.

Also the chains seem to like that goods sold be uniform across the 
chain.

In 1985 a large Niagara grower told me that he had sent a load of 
peaches to a supermarket in Kingston, Ontario about 250 miles away by 
road. The manager was very pleased with the peaches and promised more 
orders. Soon after the manager said there would be no more orders; head 
office had told him that if he made another direct buy like that he 
would be fired.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Fri, 7 Jun 2013 14:33:08 -0400, Road's End Farm 
<organic87@frontiernet.net> wrote:
> On Jun 7, 2013, at 1:49 PM, Michael Dossett wrote:
>
> > When was the last time you bought a peach at the grocery store and
> > could say it was REALLY good?
>
> Never.
>
> Some grocery stores do occasionally have fairly good peaches -- if
> they're locally sourced, from within twenty miles or so, from a farm
> catering to the local trade.
>
>
>
> -- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 6A now I think
> Fresh-market organic produce, small scale