Jim Prevor’s Perishable Pundit, March 14, 2022
We’ve been writing about Wealthy Dachman for a very long time. We’ve had many interactions with him on account of his lengthy profession with Sysco:
Dachman To Head Sysco’s Produce Division
2018 London Produce Show’s Thought-Leader Breakfast Features All-Star Cast Of Industry Luminaries
Foodservice Forum At New York Produce Show Puts Produce First On Restaurant Menus
Industry Veterans And Rising Stars Volunteer To Lead University Interchange Mentorship Program
Additionally a number of since he determined to dedicate his life to the non-profit sector with the aim of accelerating produce consumption:
He was additionally named as one of many 35 produce business Vanguards on the event of the thirty fifth Anniversary of PRODUCE BUSINESS journal:
Celebrating 35 Years — Vanguards Who Made a Distinction: RICH DACHMAN
This yr he crosses the Atlantic to hitch us a featured speaker at The London Produce Present and Convention.
Wealthy Dachman
CEO
Brighter Bites
Houston, Texas
Wealthy Dachman, former VP of Produce for Sysco, first participated within the London Produce Present and Convention as a part of the 2018 Thought Leader Panel, and this yr, Dachman, now Brighter Bites CEO, returns to the 2022 present as a presenter on March 22. At Brighter Bites, Dachman brings his lifelong experience within the produce business, in addition to his ardour for making wholesome vegatables and fruits accessible to all.
Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that delivers contemporary vegatables and fruits straight into households’ arms, with a aim of adjusting habits amongst kids and their households to stop weight problems and obtain long-term well being. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has offered greater than 50 million kilos of produce and hundreds of thousands of diet training supplies to greater than 500,000 people (together with lecturers) in Houston, Dallas, Austin, TX; New York Metropolis; the Washington, D.C. metropolitan space; southwest Florida and Salinas, CA. In January 2022, Brighter Bites expanded its programming to Los Angeles, CA, and shall be increasing to Bakersfield, CA, this fall.
The key sauce is that the group emphasizes outcomes, and participates in analysis to trace outcomes. Ongoing analysis lets Brighter Bites assess what works and what doesn’t, towards the aim of accelerating demand for, and consumption of, vegatables and fruits amongst low-income kids and their households.
Beforehand within the Pundit, Dachman offered an in-depth take a look at the challenges the Brighter Bites crew undertook through the pandemic, using resourceful, multi-tiered methods to make sure this system continued to thrive and lengthen its attain with the rising plight of households in want. [You can read the full piece here: While Brighter Bites Steps Up with Retail Voucher Program, And Participation In USDA’s Farmers-To-Families Food Box Project, Produce Industry Heroes Are Needed to Provide Product, Distribution And Funding]
On the 2021 New York Produce Present, Dachman inspired all current to assist any program “that will get individuals to be more healthy by consuming extra of the merchandise that we develop.”
“I feel we’re a bit naïve, and we predict everyone understands for those who eat contemporary vegatables and fruits, you will be more healthy, however I am unsure everyone actually will get that,” Dachman mentioned.
“It’s not nearly shopping for and promoting produce — there’s a goal within the business, of unity that’s extra necessary than ever proper now. You’ve gotten shoppers on the market who need to be more healthy and discovering methods to be more healthy in concern of what might occur to them. Our merchandise are the proactive reply to assist. And the business, as I’ve mentioned usually, must get collectively and work out easy methods to message that to individuals.”
We requested Susan Crowell, contributing editor at Pundit sister publication, PRODUCE BUSINESS, to share an replace on Dachman’s position at Brighter Bites, and the group’s progress.
Q. You bought concerned with Brighter Bites after studying an article about its founder, Lisa Helfman, within the native newspaper. Why did that article spark your curiosity?
A. That article just about hit each nerve that I had — I’ve all the time been an enormous proponent of utilizing the produce business as a well being car for individuals. It is necessary to me. You may’t be wholesome with out consuming contemporary vegatables and fruits. It is inconceivable. They usually simply occur to style actually, actually good, they usually’re actually good for you.
I by no means thought we did sufficient to essentially market that to the inhabitants. So, discovering a company that directed its efforts towards habits change and utilizing produce because the car was spot on for me. I simply contacted Lisa at that time, and it is simply changed into a stupendous long-term relationship. I joined the board after which finally turned CEO. My relationship with Brighter Bites has simply been actually magical.
Q. How did you make that connection between well being and the produce business? I imply, clearly, it is hand in hand, however not everyone develops that.
A. I grew up in my father’s produce enterprise, and we had been in a position to carry vegatables and fruits dwelling from the market, so we might all the time have an enormous quantity of vegatables and fruits once I was rising up. I feel, on the whole, it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s a must to reside what you consider — and it’s a must to characterize your self to your prospects and your workers via honest perception and no matter it’s you do. So if we’re within the produce business, and we won’t even characterize to our personal workers and our personal prospects how necessary consuming and consuming contemporary vegatables and fruits is, and being wholesome, then I feel you could have a tough time promoting your product. There is no sincerity. So I simply assume that is a very good enterprise apply on the whole.
I simply consider it’s a must to stroll the stroll. I hate to say it, however for those who observe an unhealthy weight loss program, and also you’re overweight with diabetes, and also you’re sitting there attempting to promote any person contemporary vegatables and fruits, it is a exhausting promote. Folks have to consider you consider in your personal product.
I feel we owe it to ourselves to take accountability to attempt to assist the world. I have been blessed with this excellent involvement on this extraordinary business. We now have the facility to vary lives: Our product is the proactive prescription for well being. Not many industries can say that. We’re fortunate to be a part of that chance and have that answer in our arms — and it is a disgrace that we would not use it. I actually consider the entire business ought to get behind it. I’ve all the time mentioned the business is short-sighted on the subject of this — they’re about promoting a product and getting a return for it, and never it as an total advertising technique to know the true energy of our product.
Q. How has Brighter Bites been working, particularly, to boost consumption of vegatables and fruits?
A. What Brighter Bites does is go the final mile. It’s extremely uncommon. We’re altering the lives of our households, and we now have knowledge to point out that these are modified. I’ve all the time referred to as it hand-to-hand fight — we’re those on the battlefield, combating for one household at a time. We’re not like others which are like broad air assist, with broad messaging, which, sure, we’d like. However the Brighter Bites program goes in and we give 20 kilos of produce to a household through the college yr, and we even have a summer time program.
The normal distribution mannequin is pallets of bulk produce are introduced out to a faculty, and volunteers carry them into the college space, whether or not it’s the cafeteria or the auditorium. After which meeting strains are manned with mother or father volunteers and, with the supervision of our employees, they create luggage for distribution that day.
In the course of the pandemic, after we could not even get in colleges or colleges had shut down, we went to a pre-box program the place we paid both our meals financial institution companions or our distribution companions to construct the containers for us with the quantity of produce and varieties that we require. Then we might have parking zone distributions, so even when the youngsters weren’t at school, the household would nonetheless come choose up their produce. We solely cope with colleges which have a minimal of 80% free lunch, so we’re working with under-resourced households. We estimate the produce that we give them would value round $30 to $35 per week at retail, which is huge for a household.
Most significantly, are our diet classes which are taught at school. After we go into a faculty for 3 years, it’s required that lecturers train our Vitamin Schooling classes to the scholars and now have a minimal variety of produce actions with the youngsters. We even have recipes and train individuals easy methods to use our merchandise. So they’re bodily receiving the product for gratis — after which we’re educating what’s necessary about diet and why it is necessary that you simply eat proper.
We’re in a faculty for 3 years. And through that point, we now have proof from our co-founder, Dr. Shreela Sharma and her crew, via many, many surveys and revealed papers, that we modify habits in these households. And we have completed follow-up two years after we’ve left a faculty and decided that the habits change nonetheless exists.
The statistics confirmed 19 additional servings of contemporary produce being consumed from baseline even two years after we left a faculty. So we will verify habits change — and we’re creating shoppers for the business on a everlasting foundation.
[Editor’s note: Brighter Bites co-founder Dr. Shreela Sharma developed the research infrastructure for the program and ensures rigorous replication across all its sites. She is a professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health (UTHealth) and a trained dietitian and physical therapist. You can read more about the Brighter Bites research in this Q&A with Dr. Sharma:
Q. Tell me how the program has expanded beyond the Houston, TX, area.
A. This year is our 10-year anniversary, and we’re planning a very large fundraising event in the Houston area to celebrate our anniversary, and we’re very excited about that. But the program started in Houston and expanded to Austin and Dallas. Since then, we have expanded to New York, Washington DC, southwest Florida. We also are now in Salinas, CA, and, within the last couple weeks actually, we started in Los Angeles, which we’re really excited about. We’re going to be starting in Bakersfield this fall as our third California city, and we have plans to also open up Phoenix, AZ, this fall, which will be our 10th city in our 10th year.
Q. So if you could wave a magic wand, what would you like the produce industry to do as a whole to raise the produce consumption — and overall health — bar?
A. Our industry is extraordinarily fragmented when it comes to funding the necessary marketing that communicates to the consumer. I think the industry needs to centralize itself to be able to build a large enough fund to actually get messaging across to the consumer in the right way.
We have a product that’s better for you than anything else you could eat. Yet companies are spending tens of millions of dollars marketing a product like macaroni and cheese — convincing people to eat it — and we’re not doing anything. It’s sad. We’re not growing produce consumption, because I just don’t think we’re putting in enough effort, and we’re not messaging people in the appropriate manner.
I understand they’re all competing against each other, and it’s very difficult for them to say, ‘I’m gonna go in with my competition to help sales.’ And there’s a lot of individual commodity advisory councils out there and so forth where products are already getting money — it may not be a lot, but they’re getting money to build demand, whether it’s strawberries or blueberries or citrus. But each one of them is individually trying to say, ‘eat blueberries,’ or ‘eat oranges,’ and they need to understand the concept if people start eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, they’re all going to gain. Everybody’s going to gain.
Q. At the London show, you’ll be presenting to people who aren’t familiar with Brighter Bites. What is it that people are most interested in learning?
I would say trying to grasp what causes behavior change and how it’s sustained. People are also intrigued and want to know more about the process: How do you do that? How do you get an elementary school child to change his/her eating behavior and how do you prove that? Any of us who have kids know that that’s not an easy thing to do. But when you actually go out to these distributions, and the kids wait in line to get their boxes or their bags, and they immediately want to look in the bag to see what’s there… They look up with bright eyes at their mom or dad and say, ‘oh my, we have mangos today’ or ‘we have a couple of avocados’ and they’re literally joyful when they see that… It’s really one of the most gratifying moments you could have.
You know, that item used to be cookies and candy, so to see them get excited about a fruit or vegetable is an extraordinary victory. I try to portray that to people so they understand.
We’re not saying we’re going to start Brighter Bites in London, although we are partnering to a great degree with the International Fresh Produce Association, and they’re a global organization and very helpful in what we do. But I think the messaging in London needs to be about the importance of health and the importance of using your industry to be responsible and to be a part of that. Brighter Bites is a great example of how that works.
Generally speaking, people in the produce industry really want to be to help people. What if you can show them that they’re actually helping a family with a need, and that they can touch that? Almost everybody is like, ‘I really want to be a part of that.’ We have an industry that really is empathetic about people; they want to help. So, if you can show someone that they’re affecting a life in a positive way, most of the time, we have wonderful people in our industry who want to get behind that.
Q. So how can people help?
A. I always say you have to ask for the order in the end. The ‘ask’ for me is what we do with Brighter Bites is very expensive, because we provide all the produce for free, we have our own staff at every school, feeding the families and managing the whole process. We can go as far as we’re funded.
There are generally three needs when you have to open up a Brighter Bites. First, you need people in need, schools in need — and when we go into a city, it’s never hard to find enough schools. Second, we have to provide produce and the logistics of produce and, quite frankly, we’re always able to find a way to get that done. And the third thing is you need to fund it — and that’s the most difficult part, is finding funding to get this done.
I don’t want this to be a commercial or anything, but that’s where we need help. We’re all struggling, but we need some more funding that could be funneled into what we’re doing so we can expand it to reach more families and more cities. We do have USDA SNAP-Ed (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance-Education) funds that support us in Texas, California and New York, and they’re spectacular, but I think there’s a lot more USDA funds out there that we could somehow plug into. But I hope the private produce industry could get behind this a little bit more, and, as big as they are, help Brighter Bites expand, and expand the consumption of their product.
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Rich has a wealth of knowledge. He engaged heavily in the UK when Sysco purchased Brakes and Fresh Direct, and he will bring to London an unparalleled engagement in fresh produce, foodservice and the industry efforts to boost consumption.
In addition to his presentation, there will be a robust Q&A and the UK audience can ask questions such as these:
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If someone in a non-US location, such as the UK, was interested in funding something like a UK Division of the non-profit Brighter Bites, would its board consider going international? -
If someone wanted to set up a similar organization to Brighter Bites type in their country, say the UK, what are the biggest obstacles? We can challenge Rich to identify five guideposts. -
If someone wanted to support the idea of boosting consumption, but there was no Brighter Bites in their market or in their country, what other approaches could they use?
Some more specific questions as well:
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How does Brighter Bites get the produce? Do they buy it? Is it donated? What if I want to sell to Brighter Bites? Who buys it? Someone local? Someone at headquarters? In each regional hub? -
How is the assortment in the box determined? By whom? When is this determination made? If I can offer a great deal on avocados, will they increase the number of avocados in a bag? -
How does distribution work? If I sell or donate a trailer of apples to Brighter Bites in a particular city, do they have a warehouse or partner with a produce company? How do the logistics work?
It will be a demanding and robust discussion.
We can say this: The world is filled with efforts to boost consumption of produce, but very few of these programs have gone through the rigorous science-based approach that Brighter Bites has to prove it can actually increased consumption.
This opens the door to funding from not only the industry, but other non-profits and the government.
Now, not enough time has passed to know the long-term impact. Do children, impacted by the Brighter Bites program, eat more produce as grown adults? Do they feed their own children more produce?
These are questions that only time and study will answer. But the program is more rigorous than almost any, and, so far, the numbers are looking good. Rich is just one man, but if he can get the poor to eat fruits and vegetables as higher income people do, he will be responsible for not just helping the industry, but for improving the health of millions and millions of people. What an incredible journey!
Come listen to Rich, sign up to attend The London Produce Show and Conference here. We still have a few stands remaining; come display by letting us know here or help sponsor the event to make it all possible. You can ask for information here.
