- There is a clear boundary between what the consumer has control
over and the other systems outside the consumer’s boundary that can
only be influenced by the consumer (retailer, research institutes, etc.). - The consumer has financial and other resources needed to purchase
fruit. - The consumer expects to continue buying and eating fruit for many
years.
The purpose of presenting the model in Figure 14.1 is to help visu-
alize the interactions of existing systems for making one fresh produce
item available to a final consumer. Multitudes of similar chains are re-
quired for all products, across wide geographical distances, and for di-
verse distribution channels.
The huge variety of fresh products available 365 days a year at the
produce department of supermarkets demonstrates the tremendous suc-
cess of previous efforts. However, there is considerable discontent by
consumers with the quality of fresh produce. Flavor is often lacking,
bruising can be excessive, and texture can be unacceptable. At the same
time the losses mentioned earlier increase the costs of products to the
final consumer.
Expanding a Link
The previous section presented a method for visually integrating the
systems and flows necessary to provide an individual produce item to a
final consumer. The method for visualizing the chain is now expanded
by showing the subsystems for two of the links in the chain.
Two roundtable workshops were recently convened by the Posthar-
vest Active Learning Laboratory (PAL Lab) at the University of Geor-
gia. The 20 participants included managers from the links shown in
Figure 14.1. Some participants stated that it was the first time they had
met with representatives from each business to discuss how to reduce
losses and to improve the quality of fresh produce. At the second round-
table we developed diagrams to show the activities required by each
business link. The consumer link was done as a group before small teams
worked on the other links.
The model for a consumerin Figure 14.2 is based on inputs from the
roundtable participants. Five subsystems were identified as the primary
activities of a consumer of fresh produce (manage the system, obtain
fresh produce, store products obtained, prepare as necessary, and to eat