Bell peppers as football players, tomatoes listening to music, and surfing mini-sweet peppers are all part of the new veggie branding created by Produce Team LLC to appeal to children in the US to eat more vegetables. According to Diana Zamudio, regional sales associate of the Produce Team, “We want to reach more US consumers. We wanted to create something for kids to enjoy the vegetables too. The market response in the US to this recent brand change has been very good.”
The group has its headquarters and distribution facility in McAllen, Texas, with production fields in Mexico. They have around 200 hectares, where they produce around 30% tomatoes, 30% cucumbers and 30% peppers. “We started this journey as growers 15 years ago. In 2018, we started our distribution center in the US. We have greenhouse-grown tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and squash, both organic and conventional. We started the distribution part of the company in the US to try and reach the final customers and to know a little bit more about the market. All of this with the main goal to get the best return for growers in Mexico. We are a cooperative operation based in Mexico. This is an opportunity to knock on some doors of retailers, wholesalers, and food service distributors in the US. It gives us a chance to understand the composition of the market and how the prices change, and we try to grow too.”
Zamudio says they mostly sell into the East Coast of the US from Texas. They also supply customers in New Jersey, Chicago, and Pennsylvania on the west side of the US. She says prices vary from one supermarket to another making it harder to provide specific pricing information.
The Produce Team at the IFPA 2023 Global Produce and Flower show in Anaheim.
The group has had to be innovative and adapt to the US market, where they face stiff competition from established companies and brands. They do this through branding, a lot of market research with creative sales responses, as well as the development and offering of sustainable, compostable packaging as an affordable alternative to plastics. This includes bags, trays and clamshells, depending on the commodity.
“Our conventional packaging has a competitive price within the market, and the compostable packaging is only around 18% higher in cost, and provides a more sustainable solution. Depending on the presentation, we did a lot of research on what final customers want. For compostable material, we wanted it to not be out of range in terms of knowledge, so we learned a lot about pricing for the market. For final customers, we are getting to the goal of getting good prices for consumers. The US is a very dynamic market with a lot of competition and big players. Even though we are a young company, we differentiate ourselves through sustainable packing. We are also selling nature; we want to do something that is more sustainable. A year and a half ago, we started with the compostable packaging together with a company in Mexico,” concludes Zamudio.
For more information:
Diane Zamudio
Produce Team
Tel: +1 (956) 483-2933
Email: [email protected]
www.produceteam.com