We're delighted to have returning to the podcast as our guest today Josh Padilla, a veteran produce director who most recently led the produce team at Marketplace Bermuda. Josh has also led produce at Citarella in New York and at Gerrity’s in Pennsylvania. His career has also included Krasdale Foods, Whole Foods Market, and Pathmark Supermarkets. In today's episode, Josh provides his perspective on some of the topics that surfaced from the first-ever State of the Produce Manager report: forced distributions and how produce leadership can ease the aggravation that distributions can cause for produce managers; how different organizations structure reporting between merchandising and operations; how merchandising and operations should collaborate and why they sometimes lock horns instead; how labor for produce fits into the bigger picture of labor for the overall store and metrics that leadership gets judged on; the need for more leadership/people management training for produce managers; the opportunity to get creative with incentives to encourage efficiency and to increase retention; and much more. Enjoy! 

For inquiries about the full State of the Produce Manager report, please reach out to Ashley Nickle at ashley@nicklegrowthstrategies.com or on LinkedIn.