Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/14183
Supercenters, 117 Neighborhood Markets and established 42 food distribution centers. He became VP of Produce/Floral in 1994, and in 1998 was made Senior VP of Perishables. In addition to his Merchandising and Procurement responsibilities, Bruce was the Chairman of the WalPac Advisory Group, which is Wal-Mart’s Political Action Committee (PAC). Bruce actively represented Wal-Mart in Washington and lobbied on a wide variety of agricultural issues. Bruce was a driving force in several industry-changing initiatives including Reusable Plastic Containers (RPC’s), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Vendor Co-Managed Replenishment, Category Management, Food Safety/Traceability and Case Ready Meat, just to name a few. Bruce retired from Wal-Mart in 2007, and later joined Naturipe Foods LLC as its president and CEO, where he applied his retail perspective and business acumen to a grower shipper organization. During his career, Bruce has been active and recognized in a wide variety of industry roles, including Produce Marketer of the Year by The Packer, Perishable Executive of the Year by Grocery Business magazine and he served as Chairman of the Produce Marketing Association. In that same year, he was appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to serve on the USDA Produce Advisory Committee. Bruce is a guest lecturer at six major universities, is frequently asked to comment on timely and relevant industry issues and is asked to speak at a wide variety of industry events. He brings a seasoned perspective to virtually every aspect of the supply chain from the producer straight through to the consumer. He serves as a board member for several companies dealing in supply chain logistics, grower/shipping and Information Systems. He currently resides in Bentonville, Ark., with his wife Maggie. THREE CHALLENGES Peterson will be speaking on a variety of topics, but his perspective on the potato industry comes down to three challenges the industry is facing: overproduction, tightly held information and technology advancement putting pressure on the fresh market. 1) Overproduction Peterson says the first problem in the industry is really a simple one: the production curve is accelerating greater than consumption curve. “If you look at the general consumption of potatoes, particularly in the fresh market, that has been relatively stable to, in some places, declining. And so that’s putting huge pressure on the fresh end of business.” 2) Safeguarded Information Growers are all competitors of one another, which he points out can be a good thing to a degree, but not when it comes to an entire crop. “There’s no thoughtful management of how you bring a crop to market. It tends to be a week-to-week deal: some people win, some people lose. That’s not been very productive for the industry for quite some time.” 3) Frozen Technology Peterson says the third thing that’s putting pressure on the fresh market, which he spoke about last year, is technology advancement in the frozen sector. As an example, he uses the Ore- Ida Steam N’ Mash, a product where consumers steam them in their microwave for ten minutes, then mash them as usual. 17