Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1073364
28 POTATO GROWER | FEBRUARY 2019 Massachusetts-based Cambridge Farms' distribution channel on the East Coast is built on integrity and quality. By Tyrell Marchant Photos courtesy Kenneth Gad Ken Gad is not a farmer; he refuses to give himself that much credit. But a lot of growers up and down the Eastern Seaboard— and elsewhere—wouldn't be the success stories they are without the help of Cambridge Farms, the potato brokerage company Gad co-founded in 1983. He's business-minded, decisive and quick on his feet, but personable, genuine and completely honest about who he is and what he does. When asked what his agricultural background was when he signed on with the new company 36 years ago, Gad laughs self- deprecatingly. "Well, I could ride a horse and drive a tractor," he says. "I grew up in the Midwest on, for lack of a better term, a play farm. I'm not going to say I had a farming background, but I had a good business background." That business background has blossomed into a substantial network of growers, packers, shippers and retailers from Prince Edward Island to Florida. Connections in Idaho, Colorado, California and the Midwest have further strengthened that network. Cambridge Farms has grown from a seasonal combination broker-shipper based in a warehouse outside Boston to one of the premier national and international resources for its marketing partners in the produce industry. That's the terminology Cambridge Farms uses when referring to what others might call clients or customers: marketing partners. "I hate to use the monikers 'buyer' and 'vendor' and 'seller,'" says Gad. "That inherently sets up an adversarial relationship. Our goal is to create continuity of supply. We like to create a scenario for the farmer to win, for us to win, for the retailer to win, and for the consumer to win. If you set it up as buyer/vendor, it feels like one has to win and one has to lose. But if we set it up as The Network