by Ron Petersen
When COVID-19 hit the US and consumer product demand skyrocketed, shoppers were quickly met by empty grocery store shelves. I don’t have to tell grocery produce buyers how strained their supply chains were. Big chains were gobbling up major brand supplies and still falling short, while the smaller regional chains were scrambling for supplies.
There was no way we could have planned for or predicted the depth of the crisis that befell the produce industry in March 2020. Although, through the experience I did learn many of the things we love about our business model came in very handy in this supply bottleneck.
Here’s what we did and what we learned.
Relationships
Many of our growers are located within 10 hours of Des Moines. We also have warmer climate growers who help extend our fresh potato season. When this crisis hit, access to our reliable growers gave us an advantage in being able to get potatoes to our packing facility quickly. Because of our decades long relationships, our growers are loyal to us and we are loyal to them. Even with a price sensitive product like potatoes, you cannot undervalue a good, old fashioned relationship.
Agility
Being a smaller company gives us the nimbleness and flexibility to be able to adapt on the fly. From the beginning of the crisis, production time was what mattered. We were able to step in and help fill the gap because of the lack of bureaucracy and red tape that typically comes when dealing with large corporations. Our amazing staff rose to the challenge, working longer hours and more days per week than usual and came through for our customers.
Say “Yes”
While Idaho is the biggest producer of Russets, their production lines simply couldn’t keep up with the burst of demand. Out of desperation, one of my customers called and asked if we could package Idaho Russets. Although we had never co-packed for a grocery store before, we said, “yes” and found a way to make it happen as quickly as possible. Within two days, we picked up, bagged and shipped the potatoes, while still meeting the quadruple demand we were experiencing of our own potato sales. Did I mention how amazing our team was through this?
We also observed a few things that might help grocery produce buyers.
Retail buyers know that consumers are comfortable with recognizable brands and there will always be a market for those nationally recognized logos. However, this crisis showed that now may be the time to look for the smaller suppliers to broaden and diversify supply chains. While price is always top of mind, the ability to pivot that the small guys possess is a valuable asset in the best of times, and critical in times like March 2020. We’re ready and able to do what’s necessary to get that product to our customers.
Speaking as one of the small guys, I can say we don’t just see our customers every quarter. We stay in constant touch. Fifteen years into this business, I still love picking up the phone and hearing a buyer’s voice. Seeing them face to face is even better. They know when they have questions, they’ll get a straight answer directly from me, not a middleman.
In these situations, the ability of suppliers to work together is key. The service that we’re providing is bigger than all of our companies combined. It’s all about the citizens of our communities and country.
Even through this unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, we’re essentially doing business the way we always have. We take pride in the level of customer service we provide. We treasure our longstanding relationships with our growers who keep us in high quality, premium potatoes. And most of all, we value our committed and dependable production and support staff.
We like to think being “small potatoes” is something good, because being small gave us the ability to get product to our customers when they really needed it. Consumers are worried about their food supply, and we want them to know that there will always be potatoes.
Summertime Potato Company is a grower-packer-shipper based in Des Moines, IA, distributing throughout the nine-state area. Since 1974, we have taken pride in our product and relationships while also working hard to provide highly responsive, personalized customer service to our grocery produce buyers.