Lately, I’ve been sitting with the concept of survival—where it shows up in our industry, how often it’s invoked, and what it really asks of us.
The idea came from a story I was reading that posed a simple question: Does the survival of one require the defeat of another? It’s a question that feels especially relevant in fresh produce, though I suspect it applies to many industries navigating pressure from all sides.
When margins tighten, and stakes rise, it’s easy for the dynamic between product and shelf, retailer and supplier, to slip into something more adversarial than collaborative. Everyone is fighting to survive—but that framing assumes survival is a zero-sum game.
What if it isn’t? What if survival, in this industry, is actually most sustainable when it’s shared? The companies that are thriving already know this.
What I’m really talking about here is the relationship between what are often perceived as opposing sides of the supply chain. Growers, shippers, and suppliers on one end. Retailers and foodservice buyers on the other. The tension is real, and it’s not imagined—but neither is the opportunity. These sides are not meant to cancel each other out. They are meant to rely on one another. When partnership replaces posture, the wins start to be about how the entire system holds.
The drive for collaboration in our industry is strong. I hear it constantly—in conversations, in panels, in quiet admissions behind closed doors. Companies are choosing to come together instead of going it alone. Sharing ideas, risk, and responsibility in an effort to strengthen fresh produce in a sea of food competitors, all vying for attention, space, and dollars.
The endgame is bigger than any single company, category, or contract.
If survival is the goal—and it is—then perhaps the better question is how do we survive. The only way we move this conversation forward is by having it at all. By acknowledging the tension without letting it define us. By choosing a partnership where competition once felt like the default.
Because survival doesn’t have to mean someone else’s defeat. It can mean mutual resilience—and a stronger future for fresh produce as a whole.
