Take the farm to your customer

Jun 06, 2025

The requests for category managers and other employees in retail to visit suppliers never ends. People are proud of what they do, and they want their customers to see their operation. When I was working in retail, we could never get to all of the farms. We were managing hundreds of suppliers and almost everyone wanted us to visit. There is no doubt, it is valuable to see suppliers in action and understand their business better. Unfortunately, it is just not realistic to get to them all.

If you have invited your customers for a visit, but they tell you it probably will not happen, then take a different approach. Take the farm to them.

We all have the technology to make it happen

Now is the time when most fresh produce operations in Canada are at their best. Greenhouses are in operation all year, but outdoor farms are busiest during the spring, summer and fall. Take photos of different parts of your operation and if you can, add video too. The surroundings you work in every day are the norm to you. To a category manager sitting in an office, there is a lot to learn about how a farm works and what is happening out there.

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Video: Designing a Robotic Berry Picker

Since blackberries must be harvested by hand, the process is time-consuming and labor-intensive. To support a growing blackberry industry in Arkansas, food science associate professor Renee Threlfall is collaborating with mechanical engineering assistant professor Anthony Gunderman to develop a mechanical harvesting system. Most recently, the team designed a device to measure the force needed to pick a blackberry without damaging it. The data from this device will help inform the next stage of development and move the team closer to the goal of a fully autonomous robotic berry picker. The device was developed by Gunderman, with Yue Chen, a former U of A professor now at Georgia Tech, and Jeremy Collins, then a U of A undergraduate engineering student. To determine the force needed to pick blackberries without damage, the engineers worked with Threlfall and Andrea Myers, then a graduate student.