COVID-19 and The Produce Industry: The Great Accelerator
October 27, 2021 | By Jim Prevor, Produce Business
As I thought of what to write about the situation that we, as an industry and as a people, have gone through during our interaction with COVID-19, my first inclination was to look at the experience as a kind of Great Collaboration. Early in the pandemic, we interviewed Michael Muzyk of Bronx, NY-based Baldor, and he told us of how his company had pivoted to survive the pandemic.
One of the examples he gave was how his company, flush with warehouse capacity and trucks when restaurants closed down, came to the aid of Acme, whose own warehouses and trucking capabilities were overwhelmed by the need to handle pandemic supplies and consumer hording of canned goods and other products.
Efforts such as these were inspiring, and similar stories were happening throughout the industry. Yet as useful, indeed inspiring, as many of these efforts were, they seemed more improvisational, fitting the moment, not rewriting the future.
