Market Notes
October 24th, 2024
CERTIFLATION – PART ONE
Introducing a new word. Certiflation is what happens when food safety certification becomes so excessive that price increases are required for businesses to survive. Certification is everywhere, it’s a booming industry, From people, to planes, to electrical plugs, to produce, and everything in between. Proof that a Capitalistic society needs to check itself, certification is a necessary component, but like everything else, greed can take it beyond reason. For purposes of example let’s look at organic produce certiflation.
Food safety is an important concern globally, and this awareness has made tracing a source much more efficient by simply mandating that the food chain be understood for every item. This is not difficult. Growers know their fields and how they are treated, packers and shippers monitor their systems, trucks are trackable, wholesalers, retailers, distributors have receiving and shipping documents. All that was really necessary was to make these documents available quickly and the industry has achieved that, yeah us. National databases and trackback procedures help us identify products that can cause foodborne illness quickly. Food safety certificates and third party audits at the source help define the safe chain of food distribution. This is often accomplished by sharing information from the growers to all concerned parties in the chain. The cost is on the grower, and it may cause a price increase as these certificates, inspections and audits are costly. The produce industry has embraced this CYA attitude, and basically everything bought and sold has traceable, audited, and certified history. How much this has reduced foodborne illness is questionable, but there is use of fear factor here, and it has worked. The public will accept the slight increase for the formulated assurance their food has been inspected. A service they ultimately pay for, but -it is slight. This rise in cost is not necessarily inflation, it is increased service for the customer.
The organic certification is different, and it is designed to maximize the cost of organic produce, a fact that they certifiers brag about. Here is some quick, recent inflation history. We had a pandemic, services got tight, labor got tight, everybody stayed home and wore masks. Then we got vaccines, then the government gave out a lot of money, nobody wanted to go back to work, then the money stopped coming, then people found jobs. This caused a roller coaster economy. While groceries continue to level out and the greed levels out, it still costs more live. Some of this remains as price gouging some of it is also due to the excessive burden of certification. The model for this is the organic produce industry, and perhaps the organic industry as a whole, but we can speak accurately to organic produce.
Organic sales are on the rise, and while they will not tip the entire economy, they have a model that is inherently designed to keep prices on the rise, which is almost exclusively to the benefit of the certifiers, and really there is no end in sight. Should the entire produce or food industry adopt these practices, prices of food and all food related services will soar and the certifiers will dance naked in the streets on their way to their certified bank. More detail next week. We need more than one page to expose this. This is probably part one of four.
NEW PRODUCE QUIZ – WHO AM I ???
I am the proud, the sweet, the fruit of the Chicle tree. I produce a milky latex that is boiled down to form the major ingredient in chewing gum. I am native to South America, but I am also grown in the West Indies, the Philippines, South Florida, and other tropical climates. Some say I look like a cross between a potato and an apple. I am round, lemon shaped or oblong, about 3 inches in diameter with a russeted rough, grayish brown edible skin. I have four inedible black seeds (used to make tea) with a soft, sweet, fragrant pulp that is fine grained. My flavor can be likened to the flavors of brown sugar or maple syrup. Eaten with my skin on, like an apple, will mellow my intense sweetness. My honey blonde deep reddish brown melt-in-your mouth pulp can be eaten out of hand or used in pancakes, rice custard and sherbet, fruit salads and wine. I can also do amazing things to a root beer float. I am quite high in fiber and considered to be a good source of potassium. I contain vitamin C, sodium and iron as well.
The answer to last weeks quiz was … DAIKON RADISH… Congrats to all winners
Visit us at www.culinaryproduce.com Phone 908-789-4700
Like us @ culinary specialty produce on Facebook