Companies Re-emphasize Honest Sustainability Efforts

AMY SUNG

It's getting pretty easy to be green. From cars to clothes to coffee, almost every consumer product category now offers plenty of “green” or “sustainable” options for shoppers who would like to think that their purchases can help make a difference for the environment.

Fruit and vegetable growers have always needed to take care of their land in order to enjoy any long-term success in farming. And, as “green” enjoys its newfound buzzword status, many growers are working to renew and re-emphasize their commitment to environmental stewardship in ways that don't cynically attempt to make a quick buck off the trend.

“Sustainability has been a fact of life in farming since the beginning of farming,” said Julia Stewart, spokeswoman for the Newark, Del.-based Produce Marketing Association.

“What's new is the name over the door — ‘sustainability’ — and the elements now found on the job description. ‘Sustainable’ used to just mean one's environmental footprint, such as how you controlled pests and conserved water. Now it has many other components as well: fair labor practices, economy, public health and wellness, product safety and integrity.”

The broadening of the concept is one factor that led the Washington-based United Fresh Produce Association to host a workshop focused on “Going Green: Understanding the Facts and Future of Sustainability” at its upcoming show May 4-7 in Las Vegas. The other factor is the association's hope that sustainability can become an industrywide initiative for produce growers, similar to food safety.

“Sustainability is very important for everyone in the supply chain, grower through retailer, but it isn't something that should be used as a marketing tool to claim one product is greener than another,” noted Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy for United Fresh.

“Really, industry should be looking collectively at how companies across the chain can increase sustainability for the common good. We applaud any grower or produce company that is working to incorporate sustainability into their operations, and we hope that they will also support an industrywide approach to sustainability.”

Obviously, the challenge to this approach will be aligning growers that are relatively new to this emerging definition of sustainability with growers that have a history of going above and beyond to ensure that optimum energy conservation, ecological land management and other sustainability practices are followed.

For example, in addition to transitioning 2,000 acres to organic tree fruit production, and establishing long-standing programs involving integrated pest management, water conservation and recycling, Wenatchee, Wash.-based Stemilt Growers has created a 23-acre composting project using culled fruit, fruit stems and leaves. The company has also installed automatic bi-fold doors in its cold storage warehouses to conserve energy; transitioned 50% of its forklifts from propane-burning units to battery-operated units; and is in the process of transitioning its trucking fleet to biodiesel fuel.

Yet, the grower has avoided seeking certification from any third-party sustainability groups to date. The reason, according to company spokesman Roger Pepperl, is a concern that many of the new third-party certifiers that have emerged recently seem to be looking for ways to make money from the green craze, rather than investing in long-term solutions.

“We think that's horrible; we think it's a way to just get a check mark,” Pepperl said. “Sustainability is personal, and it should involve your business, and your specific business.”

Instead, Stemilt Growers recently introduced a new logo in order to symbolize the company's past, present and future sustainability and social responsibility efforts. The logo is for the company's Responsible Choice program, which has been around since 1989.

“I'd say the real feeling of doing this is because we think sustainability is a personal issue within your company, it's not a blanketed program that everybody does the same thing the same way,” said Pepperl.

Another recent move comes from Porterville, Calif.-based Homegrown Organic Farms, formerly known as Sierra Heights Marketing. The company changed its name to Homegrown Organic Farms effective April 1.

Regarding the name change, spokesman Scott Mabs explained, “we wanted to begin communicating to the consumer what the company was … and what it's about, and that involves, first of all, the organic farmer.

“We have a lot of family farms, a lot of smaller growers and some larger ones, too, but a bulk of our base is family farms,” Mabs added. “And the sustainability of the family farm is something that we're trying to promote. We're doing that through making sure that the grower information is on our packaging material.”

Homegrown Organic Farms tries to include the grower name on packaging as much as possible, but because of difficulties with PLU stickers and the costs involved, it's not always feasible, Mabs said.

2008 will be a transition year for the name change, Mabs told SN. On blueberries, which are just starting to be picked now, half of the season will be on the old label. The new labels will be featured during the second half of the season, which ends in June. A new website should be up in approximately three months as well.

“It's tough, though, because as soon as we go into the next product, like grapes or stone fruit, then we start with the old materials again and then switch to the new,” Mabs told SN.

In addition to using recyclable packaging, Homegrown is also working with a company this year that uses a 10-acre solar collector field to produce a majority of the power for its manufacturing plants.

Both Stemilt and Homegrown Organic Farms grow organic fruit, and they suggest that sustainability efforts and practices lend themselves to transitioning acres to organic production as well.

“Our whole sustainability drive is a big part of the reason why we're a big organic shipper too,” Pepperl said.

“This summer, our peaches and nectarines are all in the second year of their organic [transition], which means that next year, they will all be [USDA organic] certified, and that's a big thing with us — the Artisan Naturals program. You're getting rid of all of your organic phosphates, so it's safer for workers; it's just a really cool program.”

Mabs agreed, saying that he believes organic — in and of itself — indicates a focus on sustainability at some level.

“That is part of the reason growers decide to go organic, in many cases,” Mabs said. “Because to farm sustainably is to be aware of what type of inputs you're putting into your farm.”

He continued: “I think our biggest issue that we've probably had in the past is that we haven't communicated these things. There's an investment on [consumer] understanding now. I think we need to communicate these things and move forward with that.”

Industry experts all agreed that it is important for growers to publicize their commitment to sustainability.

“The produce industry doesn't begin to tell its story anywhere near well enough,” Stewart of the PMA said. “That simply must change in the future. We have to start from square one and tell our story — a story that is inherently and thickly interwoven with threads of sustainability.”

PMA recently held a consumer focus group at its Consumer Trends conference that revealed how uninformed or misinformed many consumers are.

“Consumers have wild misperceptions about our industry's practices, and they have those misperceptions because we don't do a good job of telling our story,” Stewart explained. “For example, of how hard we work to use fewer pesticides, and smaller amounts of them. And of how we take care of our pickers so that their children can go to the same colleges ours do.”

Mabs agreed that it's a good thing to promote sustainability efforts, but to preserve its sincerity and avoid marketing spin, the industry needs to be careful of what it is calling sustainable.

“I think it's important that we're honest and up-front about whether these things are truly sustainable,” Mabs said.

“I definitely think that the consumer is requesting that they have a better understanding about how this affects the environment, and how our farming affects the world that we live in. They're requesting that, and we need to provide it.”

Pepperl said he believes that re-emphasizing the commitment to sustainability can be beneficial to the company internally.

“It becomes a kind of moniker, for your company to recognize that this is part of our thread — we have to pay attention to what we're doing,” Pepperl said.

“I think it's an effective marketing tool, as long as it's not just an icon. It's got to stand for a program, and we have a long, long historical program that we developed an icon for. I would never recommend anybody develop an icon and then develop a program for it — it's got to be part of your thread.”