Blog
Everything You Need to Know About Produce
Building Your Restaurant’s Brand with Kindness
This article was originally published at Modern Restaurant Management in February of 2019.You’ve got it all going—an exciting concept with a menu that has your special touches on a well-loved classic. Or maybe your restaurant is pushing some new and different flavors...
Restaurant Innovation that Goes Beyond Menu Items
This article was originally published at Modern Restaurant Management in October of 2019.We hear frequently how innovation is a mainstay for business survival and growth. Innovation helps restaurants stay competitive and those involved in operations and sourcing need...
What is Fresh Avenue’s In-Market Support?
You’ve probably heard the phrase, in-market support if you’ve spent any time around our team. This is probably the first and primary guiding principal behind what we’ve been doing for the past 9 years. But this is not at all a new concept, but described the one thing...
The Cost Advantage of the Right Purchasing Partnerships
Everyone in the food industry is feeling the pinch of the economy with reduced consumer patronage in restaurants and even a reduction of produce consumption in the winter months. This makes business tight causing a hard look at any extra costs. One of those costs is...
Produce Consolidation’s Impact on Operational Performance
There’s a lot more to consolidation than utilizing a hub to bring together all your orders in one place and on one PO. Those two things are the beginning of the advantage consolidation delivers. However, we want to look specifically at the impact of consolidation on...
Keep Direct Purchasing and Relationships with Consolidation
Consolidation may seem to be another layer in the supply chain that will remove your ability to maintain the relationships with growers and producers that you have worked hard to build. Also, with many other layers added into the supply chain, you may also think that...
We Believe in Produce
We believe in the health and wellness fresh produce brings, that we need more of it in our lives, more access to it, and that our work in accomplishing this is important!Christmas is a time of year where we reflect on the things that are important to us… family,...
What does the Story of the Pumpkin tell us About our Foods?
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. -Henry David ThoreauBy Marketing Director, Amber Parrow In my undergraduate studies, I took an American Food History class with professor and author Dr. Zachary Nowak. I...
Using Seasonal, LTL and Specialty Produce to Build Variety in Your Supply
One thing that consumers like is variety and we are certainly seeing exciting varieties from pink pineapples in the produce department to arugula on pizza. The fresh produce supply chain has evolved to a point where consumers have access not only to a great supply of...
The Savings Found through Produce Consolidation
Price is a significant consideration when working in a fresh supply chain. In a foodservice or retail produce purchase, each cost, even though they may only be a few dollars here and there, quickly add up from one end of the supply chain to the other. Most of the time...
Finding Stability through Produce
Restaurants are now re-imagining their supply chain with the pinch we have all been feeling with inflation and the economy. This is where our team can step in and provide some of the insider strategies with produce sourcing to help your business flex with the economy...
Improve Your Produce Business Through Transportation
When it comes to transporting fresh food items these two things are critical to ensure products with a limited shelf life and require refrigeration arrive fresh, safe, and of great quality for the consumer. This is something our team has learned over the years working...
The Pain Point of Transition – and How We Build our Business Around Easing Pain Points
Twice a year Western growers go through a moving of their facilities, operation, and team hundreds of miles away so that they can be in growing regions that support the temperature and environmental needs of many of our produce items. As you can imagine, this is a...
What is Produce Transition Anyway?
What is Produce Transition? Twice a year, Western produce growers throughout the industry pack up and move equipment, people, and operations 600 miles to be in growing regions where conditions are ideal for the fresh produce that we all enjoy. Certain items need...
How do I know What Produce Provider to Work with When they all Seem the Same?
What makes one produce provider different than the other? The marketing materials may tell a story on how one is better than the rest, but if you think about it, there is not a lot of differentiation in the product itself- the same soil, air, sun, and water is used on...
What is Produce Consolidation?
In the world of supply chain and logistics, you may be familiar with the idea of consolidation, bringing together many items together in a combined truckload. There are many benefits from this idea, maximizing truckload space that at times can be costly and hard-to...
Can Logistics Specific to Produce Make a Difference?
A key question when forming a go-to-market strategy is, should I generalize or specialize? In one case, generalization offers a wide selection of product and services which means a larger market that results in a larger quantity of buying customers—it’s a more for...
Where to Begin with Sourcing Produce
Have you ever thought of the individual components that make up produce and how it all mixes together? We all learned in elementary school that sun, water, air are the biological ingredients for plant growth. Growers takes these basics season after season to produce...
What are the Ideal Temp Ranges for Different Produce Items?
In a previous post, we talked about the importance of consistent cooling on fresh produce items because of the impact temperature has on shelf life and quality as soon as produce is cut in the field. Just as a reminder, the rule of thumb is this:Depending on the...
It doesn’t Matter Where you Buy Your Produce if you Don’t Keep it Consistently Cooled!
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who you buy your retail and foodservice produce from if you neglect to keep it consistently cooled! That’s because shelf life, product quality diminishes, and I think it’s a bit astonishing once you understand this one...
How did Kale become a Thing?
From Marketing Director, Amber Parrow What would you do with 12 pounds of chopped kale? When I do photoshoots of our producer's items, I am often left with a LOT of vegetables and I try to pass them on to friends and family. So when I received a case of kale, I knew...