My experience and background in the banana industry??

AMENDED REVIEW…

After seeing the comments on and interest in my Onion & Garlic and Pineapple Book Reviews, I realized I could tell many more stories.??So next, my experience in bananas????So here goes…

Bananas?

I’ve spent nearly half of my career working in, around, and with bananas??in Southeast Asia, North Asia, South Asia, The Middle East, Latin America, the USA, Europe, and Sub Saharan Africa. I’ve studied bananas growing in India, the Philippines, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Somalia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique?

When I was hired in 1998 by Mr. El-Naffy, President & COO of Fresh Del Monte Produce, to be the Vice President & General Manager of Asia-Pacific, the only banana experience that I had was loading and shipping bananas??and manufacturing the banana boxes for our sister company, Stanfilco, in my job as Director of Operations at Dole Philippines.??

I loved that Mr. El-Naffy was so direct, so commercially astute, and so confident.??My hiring process was three weeks – First Friday-contacted by my good recruiter friend, Pat Difuria, and then by Louie Tenazas, VP Human Resources; Second Friday-flew to Miami to meet Mrs. Tenazas and Mr. El-Naffy; Third Friday-offer made by Mrs. Tenazas; and Fourth Friday-flew to Miami for one final discussion with Mr. El-Naffy and Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh, Chairman and CEO.??After a few questions, Mr. El-Naffy looked at Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh and then turned to me and told me, “You are hired my friend!”??They knew what they wanted and what they were looking for.??It had been 14 months since Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s family purchased Fresh Del Monte, the global produce arm of Del Monte, from the Mexican government.??There had been 400 applicants…I was chosen!

So again, really…I didn’t have much banana experience.??Even one of my direct reports commented to Mr. El-Naffy that “…but Randy doesn’t have any banana experience…”. Mr. El-Naffy told me that he told him, “I will train him!”??So, after a ten-day orientation in Costa Rica and a few days at the corporate offices in Miami including long sessions with Mr. El-Naffy, I flew off to Hong Kong, landing in the old Kai Tak Airport, to assume my new position.??Tracy was seven and Elise was five!??It was fun to see their eyes as we landed between the buildings at Kai Tak airport and as we drove through the many high-rise buildings!??We lived in the Kowloon Shangri-La for two months as we searched for housing and waited for our household goods to arrive.??

My first trip to the Philippines was like a homecoming.??As I stepped onto the gangway from the Cathay Pacific flight at the old Manila Airport, I felt so comfortable…like I had gone home.??The Philippines felt so familiar the second time around…so easy!??I met with Shirley Chan, Finance Director for the group, and Luis Laya, General Manager of the Philippines.??We proceeded to Davao for my introduction to our 10,000-acre banana business, mainly Del Monte purchased fruit from 3 large growers.??During this trip, we visited our biggest grower, Mr. Floriendo, of Anflocor/Tadeco. Mr. Floriendo had left the Philippines in 1985 with Ferdinand Marcus, as they were quite close, after President Marcus resigned the presidency at the urging of President Reagan.??Mr. Floriendo was allowed to return many years later for a price of $25m paid to the Philippine government.??Mr. Floriendo flew me around his 5,500-hectare plantation, the largest contiguous banana plantation in the world, in his helicopter.??The Philippines was suffering a severe drought from El-Nino.??The banana plantation was devasted.??It was so sad.??But, unbelievably, during my visit, IT RAINED!??Mr. Floriendo turned and told me that I had brought the rains and good luck!??It sealed our relationship for the next six years!??

After the Philippines, I visited our markets in Japan, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea.??In Japan, we had a strong network of 20 big customers, the Del Monte Associates.??But, because of the drought, shipping volumes dropped significantly, although our profits soared.??I was confronted by the Del Monte Associates, at a very large meeting, asking mainly “what was I going to do about volumes, El-Nino, shipping, etc.??It appeared we had really let them down.??So, I just “winged it” and told them that they didn’t know me but that I promised them that I would fix everything – shipping frequency, volumes, quality, etc.??Interestingly, three years later, the Chairman of the largest produce company, Tokyo Seika, accosted me at a reception, and through a translator, told me, “Randy-san, you said that you would fix everything, and you did.??You are a man of your word!”

Del Monte was slightly smaller in volumes that my old company, Dole.??We shipped on average 35-million cartons of bananas!??But we were substantially more profitable.??Compared to Dole, Del Monte had half the salaried and management employees.??I found that Del Monte had more gifted and talented people who were simply doing much more.??Mr. El-Naffy used to tell me, “Randy, just push people because they can take on a lot more!”??So true!??My team used to laugh because we believed that Mr. El-Naffy would push us to edge of a cliff and we would have to convince him NOT to push us over the cliff!

I loved working for Del Monte and within a few years I became very confident, knowledgeable, and street smart.??We developed a great team!??I used to say that at work, I was a different person in dealing with banana customers, loud and threatening.??We became very strong in Asia.??In Hong Kong, after constructing state-of-the-art pressurized ripening rooms on the 11th?floor of a 12-floor warehouse next to the port, securing the largest retailer, and then doubling the size of our facilities, we achieved a 93% market share.??The quality and availability of our bananas improved so much, that we saw a 15% increase in per capita consumption in Hong Kong!??After building new port and ripening facilities, in Korea, we achieved a 53% market share.??In Singapore we achieve a 67% market share.??We bought a business in New Zealand.??We sold into China, but found it a difficult country to earn a profit.??We sold into Pacific Russia, but interestingly, NONE of my Directors wanted to meet with the Russian buyer in Russia, so we agreed to meet with him in the lobby of a hotel in Hong Kong!??And we began to ship more volume to the Middle East, which is now a huge market for Del Monte.??Interestingly, my main contact in Dubai was Mohammed Abbas, who was Sales Manager for Amir Abu-Ghazaleh’s company.??Mr. Abbas is now the Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Fresh Del Monte!??I enjoyed working with him.

During my six years, we grew the business from $225m to $400m in revenues!??And we were hugely profitable as compared to know.??I interviewed with Dole, and Dole’s President revealed its Asia financials with me.??That’s when I realized how much more profitable we were at Del Monte!

After six years, in 2004, I was offered the #2 role in Europe, as the SVP of Europe, did not have a replacement and there were concerns that if he were to leave, Del Monte would have continuity problems.??But, after much soul searching, I left Del Monte to assume the CEO position of Green Giant Fresh/Growers Express, a supplier of 40 fresh vegetables based in Salinas California.??So, I thought, my banana days were over!

Then in 2010, after a six-month process, I was selected and assumed the position of CEO of Rift Valley Corporation based in Sub-Saharan Africa.??The group had two banana businesses, one in Zimbabwe and a huge greenfield project in Mozambique.??The Zimbabwe banana business, Chipinge Bananas, was a 200-hectare project selling locally in Zimbabwe and into South Africa.??We experienced many cold weather-related problems because it is located at 1,100-meter elevation.??The packing and packaging were a bit primitive compared to the export banana industry.??But overall, it was a nice little profitable business.

When I visited the Mozambique project, again, I felt like I had gone home.??My old buddy, Carlos Barquero, who had worked with me at Del Monte in the Philippines, and for whom I had been a reference, was the CEO of our Mozambique banana project, Matanuska.??Unfortunately, Carlos left Rift Valley to become COO at Lapanday??Foods in the Philippines.??Fortunately, I was able to reconnect, and we hired my old friend, Jack Dwyer, who was CEO for a supplier to Del Monte in the Philippines, Lapanday Foods.??He had immense experience, especially Africa experience as he led Del Monte’s Cameroon banana project about ten years earlier.??Immediately, he identified drainage, cold chain, and logistics’ issues.??More importantly, he pointed out that Rift Valley was managing the project like it was a tropical environment.??But it actually was a sub-tropical environment, which explained many of our problems, requiring totally different ag technology.??What we assumed was a greenfield project that was riddled with problems.??The project budget was $45m, with a $5m contingency, to complete a 3,000-hectare plantation.??The partner was Chiquita.??When I arrived, Rift Valley had spent $45m and only planted 1,200-hectares.??Cash-flows and further investments from the partners became difficult and overwhelming!

We were in a part of central Mozambique, between Nampula and Nacala, where people had never worked in a traditional job.??Plenty of potential employees, but no work ethic; they just didn’t understand how to work and what was a day’s work.??They were not lazy, as I was asked and had to explain at my Harvard Business School Executive Agribusiness course in 2014.??They just didn’t understand the concept of working in a traditional job and for a company.??They were mostly subsistence farmers and entrepreneurs, who had survived the 10+ year civil war in Mozambique.??

We employed about 2,500 employees in the project.??(Rift Valley when I joined had 22,000 employees!). We found that female workers in the packing houses were much better workers than men!??Men, when paid, would generally purchase hooch, get drunk, and stay away from work for 3-5 days.??Women were much more reliable and much better workers in general.??There was really no infrastructure in the area.??To irrigate our plantation, Rift Valley had built a 60 million cubic meter capacity dam, the largest dam built by a private company in Africa!??The cost was $5m!??

We just encountered so many, I would say greenfield project in a remote area, difficulties in Mozambique at Matanuska – several accidents resulting in deaths; kidnapping of a previous General Manager and his family and threatening their lives; destroying our under-tree sprinkler systems (The sprinklers had little colored rings, which were stolen by villagers to make necklaces.??Destroy 100 sprinklers to make a necklace that would sell for…$1!??Ugh!; Caterpillar D-9’s with newer electronic controls not working, and just to get a technician to fly out of South Africa, to examine the equipment, would cost $5,000!; refrigerated container issues; the port of Nampula was 3x more expensive than the Philippines and very primitive; banana boxes shipped out of South Africa significantly more costly than other banana projects; Chiquita’s mis-guidance and poor planning including shipping bananas into the Mediterranean from Eastern Africa, which was too long a voyage for quality and shelf-life ( Heh, just look at a map, Chiquita!); and ultimately redirecting our bananas to Middle East markets including Iran and Saudi Arabia where prices were challenging.??And, unbelievably and finally, right before my contract at Rift Valley was completed, we discovered Fusarium disease, the most lethal of diseases in the banana industry. Sadly, this ultimately destroyed the entire plantation!

However, interestingly, because the fruit was grown in the southern hemisphere, shipping into the northern hemisphere followed the peaks and valleys of demand!??Because of the dryer growing environment in Mozambique, our spraying to control sigatoka banana fungus was about 1/3 of spraying rounds versus other parts of the banana world!??The colder sub-tropical environment also naturally produced higher-brix fruit, that is much sweeter fruit.??And, lastly, I always enjoyed BBQ get-togethers with our team; it was like the United Nations.??Employees were from the USA, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, the Philippines, and Israel!

As I left Rift Valley in 2014 after my 4-year contract completion, I decided to call someone with whom I had remained in touch, David DeLorenzo, CEO of the split-off Dole Asia. The Asia fresh produce and Global packaged foods businesses had been sold by Dole Foods to??Itochu of Japan.??I had kept in touch with Dave and had visited him in Los Angeles in 2012, when he was CEO of the Dole Food Company, to convince him to buy our Mozambique bananas, so that I could dump Chiquita. (The following year, after discussions with Del Monte and Dole, we signed a supply contract with Dole Europe to supply the Middle East under the Dole brand!).??Dave asked me to visit him in Singapore, which I did, and literally, within 20-minutes, he told me that he would hire me, and we’d figure out what I would do!??After some discussions, we decided that I would live in Sri Lanka, have nothing to do with their Sri Lanka banana business, but work on developing big projects in India and South Asia.??

In India, I linked up with the Jain Farm Fresh Food’s group.??They produced 70 million meristem banana seedlings every year.??It was a very impressive operation.??They also were helping banana farmers through their Jain Irrigation group by selling state-of-the-art solar irrigation and fertigation systems.??I traveled throughout India for 1.5 years, meeting with farmers and attending food and agricultural shows.??I am so, so, so bullish on Indian agriculture – much more advanced and modern than much of the world knows and understands.??Working with K.B. Patel, truly a great banana expert, I saw beautiful banana plantations, only a few hectares in size, out-yielding anything I had ever experienced and being grown on very marginal lands.??They had learned after 30-years, how to produce higher yields and good quality bananas on these very marginal soils.??I tried, but just couldn’t convince the “powers-to-be” at Dole to adopt some of these practices, which I felt could work, especially in the similar Sri Lanka growing environment.

After two years, Mr. DeLorenzo asked me to oversee, temporarily, the Sri Lanka banana business because he needed to transfer the General Manager to the Philippines.??So, once again, I stepped into bananas, but this time in a different country and a very small size from my experience, 650-hectares.??Unbelievably, what I inherited, after years at Rift Valley telling everyone in our banana business that we needed to be more like Dole, was another greenfield project tragedy.??No problem, I proceeded to strengthen the team, implement “Back-to-Basics” agricultural practices, dump poorly performing farms, and emancipate the management team - just do your jobs! We watched our yields grow and our costs drop!??It was a turn-around project!??I really found that I could run the business with my eyes half-open so to speak, I just knew answers to questions and solutions to problems, because of my many years’ of banana and international management experience.??I also found that at this stage of my career, I was evolving into a mentor role to a highly capable team which just needed advice, direction, and support.??We developed an outstanding strategic plan which we presented to Corporate.??I also visited the Philippines, Korea, and Japan for meetings, linking up with most of my former colleagues.??It was all so fun!

After a four-years, I was offered and took a great package to exit Dole as Mr. DeLorenzo said he was leaving and if I wanted to go, now was the time for me to go…with a package!??So, Monicah and I decided…it’s time to move to Thailand, where we ultimately built our pool-villa home.???I was hoping to move onto a new role.??But, unfortunately, Covid-19 destroyed those plans!

Since my departure from Dole, I’ve done some fun remote consulting – I was Commercial Advisor to ADQ based in Abu-Dhabi, who ultimately invested in the global produce company, Unifrutti.??In this project, I reconnected with former colleagues in the Philippines and found that Unifrutti’s banana business was quite impressive with a strong team producing quality fruit at lower costs than its competitors.??I consulted with an investment firm on the banana/fresh produce business in Asia.??And I did a desktop project for a firm in Dubai exploring a potential banana project in Somalia.

Coincidentally, I worked for two of the big banana company’s, Dole and Del Monte, and worked with some of the folks at Chiquita.??So, I had exposure to the Big 3.??For me, back in my days of working for Mr. El-Naffy, Del Monte was definitely at the time, the strongest banana company!

I loved working in the banana industry.??It was wild at times!??Some of the banana people were real characters, for whom I could write a book!??Because of bananas, I traveled to so, so many countries, 55 in all!???And, many of my friends are former colleagues?

I hope you enjoyed this story…more to come!

Aloha????