Produce professionals generally show an enormous pride and satisfaction in their work.
Ian LeMay, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association, says, “I grew up in ag. My grandfather was a farmer; my father was a farmer. What gives me purpose is I get to work and advocate for families like my own. It gives me meaning every day to advocate and work on behalf of multigenerational families.”
Not only those who own farms, he explains, but those who work on them. “That’s what drives me, what I want to preserve. I honestly love coming to work every day because the people I work for excite me. I think they’re worth the fight.”
John Pandol, director of special projects for Pandol Bros., Inc., based in Delano, CA, BB #:111977 says, “For those of us who grew up in rural, small-town America, we’re the remnant of a generation who grew up on farms of owner/operator/residents.
“One hears it at the high school reunion: ‘You still live here?’ We have worldwide businesses based in small towns from which everyone else has moved on.
“There’s something really satisfying about identifying, recruiting, and developing talent from those who are willing to remain or return here,” adds Pandol. “On the flip side, there’s something incredibly sad about those who felt pressure to stay in lines of work and places they would have never chosen.”
Experts often say this shift is generational: it started with millennials, who began to enter the workforce around two decades ago.
Wendy McManus, a leadership coach who specializes in the produce industry, agrees: “I think millennials and Gen Z are getting a bad rap for being entitled and lazy. For the ones who are getting into the produce industry, I don’t think that’s true at all.
“They’re focused, smart, and I don’t think they would have gotten into this industry if they were entitled and lazy,” she points out. “We’re getting some of the best people out there.”
Doing Good to Do Well
Brian Campos, executive director of organic sales for Sun Pacific Marketing Cooperative, Inc., BB #:122874 based in Pasadena, CA, views the question through the lens of sustainability: “I get excited about this business. I see my work as being gentler on the planet, gentler on the people who live around us.”
“To be in it for the long haul, you have to find significance in what you do,” agrees Michael DuPuis, quality assurance and public relations manager for Divine Flavor, LLC {{BB #:204689}} in Nogales, AZ. “You have to find a purpose; it allows to you have the motivation to show up every day.”
Novelty is also a major source of appeal.
“This industry is constantly changing. In produce, there’s always something new happening,” DuPuis notes.
DuPuis works with many multigenerational growers and believes most people in the produce industry were born and raised in the business.
For McManus, the figure is less: she says about a third of her clients were born into the industry. “About two-thirds came into it,” she notes, “usually through the most happenstance ways.”
McManus herself is included in this category.
“I got into the produce industry because my next-door neighbor was the executive director of the watermelon board. He needed a new marketing director, he knew I was in marketing, and he said, ‘Do you want to interview for this job?’ Later on, I followed him to the mango board.”
DuPuis himself was not born into the industry. After graduating from California State University at Fullerton, he lived in South Korea for a number of years, teaching English. When he came back to the United States, he was looking for work.
He met with the owner of Divine Flavor, DuPuis recalls. “He sold me on what Divine Flavor was doing as a company. I wanted to work for a company that believed in what it did—not just growing fruits and vegetables, but providing better food for a better world.
“In every job, every company, you’re going to have good days and bad days,” DuPuis continues. “As long as your good days outweigh your bad, it’s going to be good.
“We all have dreams,” he adds, but “you can incorporate your dream into your current path.”
When he was young, DuPuis wanted to be a baseball player, but acknowledges, “the chances of becoming a professional baseball player are very slim. Being able to get out a story that I believe in, that’s a home run for me. Meetings with growers and making them believe in the regulations we’re asking them to follow—that’s an RBI.”
This is an excerpt from a feature story in the September/October 2022 issue of Produce Blueprints Magazine. Click here to read the whole issue.
