Make Excellence a Priority in Your Fruit and Nut Growing Operation
October 25, 2022 I hammered out this editorial on an airplane heading to Chicago to present the American Fruit GrowerSM Apple Grower of the Year award, and I’m lucky. If I was writing it in my home office, I might be considered not working at all. That is, if my company installed the latest employee-tracking software that seems to be all the rage these days, which thankfully isn’t going to happen.
Many large corporations are installing software so they can tell what their online employees do by tracking their keystrokes. Anyone who stops to think for a second is not typing. So according to the software, they’re not working.
Wake me if you see the obvious flaw in this concept. That is, if you work at all like I do, because I don’t think my best ideas for making my company better occur to me when I’m typing out a report of some kind. In fact, they occur to me at the exact time the software would indicate I’m slacking off — when I’m just staring out the window. (Actually, a lot of my ideas occur to me when I’m in the shower. But I don’t want to give these companies any more employee-tracking ideas, so I’m not even going to think about what it would mean if they went down that road.)
Boosting efficiency and cutting costs have become common the past few years. Most American fruit and nut growers, like many businesses in this great country, have been scuffling of late, doing a bit of “let’s just get through this in one piece.” Pandemics will do that to you. (As for you growers who have found or redeveloped a great niche since the emergence of COVID-19 — and I heard from plenty of you during our recent State of the Industry survey — just keep quiet and count your money.)
However, I really hope the many of you growers who have made severe, but necessary, expense cuts over the past few years — whether from lower prices, shipping problems, rising input costs, etc. — will take the opportunity to re-evaluate your operations as things get back to normal. The expense-cutting mindset is great for the short term, but you won’t save your way to success. Things like keystroke tracking may improve efficiency, though even that’s debatable. In any case, increasing employee efficiency is not going to be the key to your success going forward.
I was talking to Dave Brazelton, Founder of Fall Creek Nursery in Lowell, OR, for this month’s cover story. Over the past few decades, this family business has come to dominate the global blueberry plant industry. Dave said one key to their success was their location. The spirit of innovation found among Pacific Northwest blueberry growers is infectious. They are more concerned about increasing quality than they are about cutting costs.
Brazelton describes the most successful growers he has encountered as “aggressive learners.” They are hungry for knowledge. They know that in growing fruits and vegetables, if you aren’t moving forward, you’re not just standing still, you are falling behind. They’re not going to keep pace by increasing efficiency and cutting costs.
No, the type of growth these aggressive learners are interested in is predicated on near-constant improvement. They want tastier and crunchier varieties, better irrigation methods, improved pruning. There is no facet of their operations they’re not interested in constantly improving upon all the time.
The spirit of innovation is about making money, not saving it. Bet on yourself, because if you don’t, likely nobody will. The sooner you get back to investing in your operation’s future, the better off you will be in the years to come.
Subscribe Today For
