A recent conversation with industry veteran Dick Spezzano has stayed with me. Produce has always been both art and science. The science will keep evolving. But the art—the inherited wisdom, the relationships, the trust, the conversation, the spirit—that’s where this industry has always drawn its strength.
During my conversation with Dick, he raised an idea that is simple to explain but harder to grasp in practice. We talked about something that is becoming harder to pass down: the education and innovation of the produce trade—the knowledge gained through apprenticeship and mentorship, through seasons won and lost, and through knowing what struggles came before you.
Dick sees a widening gap, a break in the chain of wisdom that for so long was easily handed down. Veterans teaching buyers, relationships forming before transactions. People who knew the categories, the families, the seasons, and the simple act of following the sun.
A change is happening in the industry, on both sides of the desk—the buying and the supply side. What a produce career is built on is changing, and so are the routes people take to get here.
As Dick puts it, the beauty of progress is that today’s generation has the opportunity to benefit from the fruits of its predecessors, but you can only truly do that by knowing the history, the trials and tribulations, and the hurdles that came before you. Understanding where the industry came from and the milestones that marked its journey allows us to appreciate both the immensity of our obligation and the gift of feeding the world.
Progress doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Having lived through an El Niño season or a devastating crop loss; having watched a category decline as farmers are pushed out by input costs and supply chain challenges; having sat across the table with buyer and vendor partners to find a solution that solidifies a relationship instead of breaking it—these experiences become the wisdom of our industry. When that wisdom is passed down, yesterday’s hard-earned lessons become part of how we make better decisions today.
Even in my own 15 years in produce, I’ve watched that shift accelerate. Growers and suppliers find themselves reintroducing, reinventing, and re-messaging just to explain who they are. Too often, the buyer on the other side doesn’t know the legacy, the growing region, or the nuances that can make or break a season. And when that context is missing, resilience starts to thin.
Strong partnerships create room for understanding long before the tough seasons arrive. They are built by people who reach across the desk and make a connection before making a transaction.
Maybe the responsibility of progress, then, is not choosing between the art and the science, but making sure we carry the wisdom of one forward as we advance the other.
