Mastronardi Produce Wins 10th Food Quality Award

Requests for organic certification also came from customers. While the company is unlikely to go to 100% organic production, it decided to pursue certification for two of its facilities. To obtain that certification, Mastronardi chose to use Proxy-Serv15 as a food-safe sanitizer for application to processed and unprocessed fruits and vegetables, as well as equipment. Similar to household peroxide, this compound quickly dissociates into water and oxygen, leaving no long-term residue.

Mastronardi has also set out to obtain Safe Quality Foods (SQF) certifications to illustrate its continuing compliance with food safety and quality standards. “Our plan was to do a phased-in approach, Darden explained. “Starting in 2007-2008, our plan was to start with a couple of facilities at lower level SQF, get familiar with the program, and, once we did, to expand it over all our facilities. Now we just want to maintain those certifications and improve on our practices and standards.”

Training and Monitoring

The quest for certifications indicates the critical importance of food safety and product quality for any potential winner of the Food Quality Award. “We have a very strong commitment to them; it’s one of the cornerstones of our corporate values,” Darden said. “We have continuous training of staff. We also measure—as well as monitor—our progress. We’re constantly challenging ourselves and trying to improve.”

The company’s budget illustrates that commitment. Darden’s food safety department received an increase of 12.1% in its budget last year and expects to receive 6.4% more this year. The department’s costs include the fees for participating in online information tracking databases that enhance the company’s ability to recall products rapidly as needed and to keep in touch with customers about the certifications of the supply chain, products, and services.

Much of the investment in food safety and quality goes toward training employees. Mastronardi trains each new employee on his or her arrival and provides refresher training at least once a year. Implementing and maintaining the SQF certifications last year took up a significant amount of training time, as did implementation of the JustFoodERP system, also introduced last year.

Effective training should result in positive reactions from customers. That happened for Mastronardi Produce in 2010, as illustrated by the rejection rate of its products by customers dissatisfied with quality, safety, or service. That rate fell from 1.38% in 2009 to 1.05% last year, even as sales increased by 15% and the company’s warehouses and distribution centers were transitioning to a new quality tier of SQF certification. The figure for 2010 fell far below the rejection rate of no more than 1.5% demanded by Mastronardi’s top-tier clients.

Community Support

Customers and employees are not a corporation’s only stakeholders. “Community support is a very big part of the Mastronardi family and the culture of Mastronardi Produce; we’re very proud of it,” Darden said. “Every year the company contributes to local charities and supports local communities through charitable organizations and causes. Also, we contributed well over a million pounds of produce last year to local food banks. One local charity said that over a million people could be fed as a result.”

No effective company wants to rest on its laurels. Mastronardi Produce continues to research new ways of improving the quality of its offerings. One typical example is the ready-to-eat (RTE) packaging facility completed early in 2010 following an investment of $2.3 million. The facility’s current objective is washing whole vegetables, such as tomatoes and cucumbers, and packaging them as RTE finished products. Those products include a new line, launched in 2010, of “RTE Sunset Kidz” products in 3-ounce single-serving packages. “It’s another way to have a unique packaging innovation and be first on the market with it,” Darden said. “We’re finding another way to appeal to the masses—small children and even the elderly. It’s a very good way to get children to eat vegetables.”