Big Changes Predicted For Produce Industry
October 15, 2012 
Produce industry pundit and ag economist Dr. Roberta Cook told a record crowd at the fall meeting of the Biopesticide Industry Alliance (BPIA) that savvy produce marketers are entering a new age of opportunity with point-of-sale scan data.
In her presentation surrounding trends and marketing implications in the produce industry, Cook said that sustainability goals are also becoming a much bigger factor in produce buyer-seller negotiations.
“Expect big changes in the next five years or so as packer-shippers will have more and better access to data surrounding their sales and product mix,” said Cook, Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at University of California (UC)-Davis.
Cook told attendees at the conference, held on the UC-Davis campus, that chain retailers now account for about two-thirds of all grocery sales in the U.S., and that demands on produce suppliers to justify shelf space through analytics are also increasing.
While Cook stopped short of declaring incremental value exists at the consumer level for fruits and vegetables produced with biopesticides, she emphasized that value for grower-shippers, and their buyer relationships, has already been established. “The business-to-consumer value may still be a ways off,” Cook said, “but for business-to-business, we’re already there.”
Attendance at the BPIA semi-annual meeting exceeded 100 for the first time in the organization’s history, as interest in biopesticides continues to rise. An increasingly broad range of effective biopesticide products are becoming established not only for agriculture, but also in public health, home and garden, and other non-crop uses.
To meet the growing demand for biopesticide information, the BPIA Public Relations and Outreach Committee unveiled its plan to launch a Speakers Bureau as well a promotional campaign to increase awareness on the organization’s website later this year.
For additional information about BPIA, visit the company’s website at www.biopesticideindustryalliance.org