This week, I had the opportunity to participate in the USHBC’s Promotion Committee and Export Subcommittee’s 2020 planning process in Dallas. Led by Bob Carini and Dave Arena respectively, the committees discussed domestic and global market conditions, issues and opportunities.
The challenges are many, but it was encouraging to see this group of industry representatives and leaders discuss how to best focus time and resources to address them.
Specifically, the Promotion Committee looked at how best to move “volume” through the food service channel. With a volume-driving focus and short-term goals for a return on any investment, an RFP process that sought to identify an agency that could help us focus our energy produced some very inspiring proposals.
The four agencies that presented did a great job of offering differing approaches and “playbooks” to meet our immediate need to move big volume. It was interesting to see what each group recommended to help solve our challenges. Ideas presented ranged from developing an approach to better engage K-12 schools to strategic working relationships with some of the largest food service operators in the country.
All in all, this was an inspiring process, and once the deliberations are complete, I look forward to announcing and executing on the plan ahead.
Stay tuned.
If you saw last week’s headlines, I’m also very excited to have Alicia Adler join our team as vice president. She’s already well known and well accomplished in the work she’s done on behalf of blueberries. And we believe that familiarity and those connections will net continued success!
So the good news is we’re making headway on our goal of moving volume. And we’re feeling great about the team we’re putting in place to help make this happen.
Which is all to say we’re focused. We’re working hard. We’re addressing problems. And we’re facing challenges head on.
My Best,
Kasey
