Produce managers are busy people. That’s why brief, to-the-point information is a must.
The produce manager needs to know several key points each day. Yet, the manager by nature simply cannot afford to be an office dweller, reading page after page instead of spending time where they are most effective: on the sales floor directing their crew.
Hence, precise communication from the head or buying office is a must.
In the 1970s, Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti Westerns (so called due to their European film locations) were still fresh on most moviegoers’ minds — including this kid. You probably remember the three most popular ones from the 1960s: “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and probably the most iconic, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
It’s funny how pop culture fits into our regular business lives, but it does. It was the title of the last Western mentioned above that our chain (like many I suspect) adapted to fit into the buyer’s daily report.
Every day, the buying team listed details that informed the produce buyers what items were new, what items were discontinued and which items were limited (due to transportation issues, weather, rejections, etc.). The one-page memorandum was appropriately titled, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
Hey, it got everyone’s attention.
Keep in mind this was still snail-mail communication between the buyers and the produce managers in the stores. (Pre-internet. Heck, it was even pre-fax machines.) Most stores received at least five deliveries weekly from the warehouse. So, along with invoices that went out with each mailbag hand-delivered by our truck drivers to each store, managers could expect to find special signing, price changes, point of sale materials, and the daily Good, Bad and Ugly sheet.
Supply management changed quickly then, as with today’s fast-paced produce operations. You never knew when a big cherry ad could collapse at the last-second due to an untimely storm front in the Pacific Northwest or how a bridge washout near Yuma, Ariz., could halt winter lettuce shipments overnight or if sluggish sales meant an impending warehouse forced distribution on a particular ad item.
All these things happen regularly, one way or another, and it was the produce manager’s job to react accordingly.
Sometimes it meant instead of pushing what would normally be a robust strawberry ad, the produce manager would reduce display space. Other times it meant a manager would build secondary displays to cope with extra, perishable inventory that stood a better chance of selling on the sales floor instead of allowing the product to sit, aging in a warehouse or in the store’s cooler. Sometimes the Good, Bad, and Ugly sheet prompted us to adjust pricing or be on the lookout for extra-mature fruit or other quality issues that would require special handling or merchandising.
The Good, Bad and Ugly sheet also kept 70 produce managers from overwhelming the buying office all at once with phone calls with the same questions. (Or it at least minimized the phone traffic.) Even with this, the warehouse still fielded lots of calls — usually from the same few who said, “Well, nobody told me.”
I can just envision that intense, Clint Eastwood squint as he might react to such a call as he chewed on his cigar. He’d say, “There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: Those who read their daily reports, and those who don’t.”
In any case, then and now, similar fresh produce communication is key. I wonder how many readers will now have “The Ecstasy of Gold,” — “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” movie musical theme — stuck in their heads for the rest of the day.
Armand Lobato retired from the Idaho Potato Commission in 2025. His more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions, and he has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.