We're going green for more than just St Patrick's Day!

Green is not only the color of the day and for our lettuce, Peddler's Son is going green!

Our '3 P's - People, Partner/Products and Planet' is our commitment to continuously improve the community we serve through sustainable practices. We'll be focusing on these areas in the coming year and will highlight some of the programs here in the blog.

Our fearless leader, Ted, has been working with APS' Green Choice program 'Solutions for Business'. APS has approved Trade Allies that help businesses learn about the energy efficiency programs and incentives available to them. Last week Jim, from ATS Electric, Inc.- an APS Trade Ally, toured the warehouse and has come back with a plan for us to replace all of our fluorescent lighting with CFL. This will be the first phase of our energy reduction plan with programs for our coolers and motion detector lights in the near future.

We want to thank Jim for all of his help and friendly attitude and we're excited about moving forward with his suggestions to help reduce our energy use.

What plans or programs have you implemented? Do you have suggestions on partners or learnings along the way? We'd love to hear from you!

2% Phoenix Food Tax

Effective April 1st 2010 the city of Phoenix will be instituting a 2% sales tax on all food items sold.

However, all food items sold for resale will be exempt from the tax. This means all of our restaurant partners will be exempt from this tax with a completed form!! We will be distributing the Transaction Privilege Tax Exemption Certificate Form 5000 to our customers during the next week. Just fill in your name, address, tax number and sign. Please contact your Sales Executive if you have any questions or call us at 602 253 3577.

March is National Peanut Month

March is National Peanut Month, a time to celebrate one of America's favorite foods! Roasted in the shell for a ballpark snack, ground into peanut butter or tossed in a salad or stir-fry, peanuts find their way into everything from breakfast to dessert.

Coincidentally, March is National Nutrition Month - a great time to recognize the nutritional value of peanuts. One serving of peanuts is a good source of protein, Vitamin E, Niacin, Folate, Phosphorus and Magnesium. Peanuts are naturally cholesterol-free and low in saturated fat.

Show your Peanut IQ by sharing some of these fun facts with your friends this month:

-Peanuts are not actually nuts at all! They are legumes, like beans, peas and lentils.
-Americans eat 3 pounds of peanut butter per person every year. That's about 700 million pounds, or enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon!
-Peanuts may be a favorite food, but we've found many uses for their shells too! You might find peanut shells in kitty litter, wallboard, fireplace logs, paper, animal feed and sometimes as fuel for power plants!
-Two peanut farmers have been elected President of the United States: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.
-One acre of peanuts will make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.

Mangoes supply expected tight until mid-March

Mango supplies are very low due to El Nino-related weather conditions, and they will likely stay low well into March, importers say.
Rains have seriously limited supplies from Peru, and the upcoming Mexican deals are a big question mark for the same reason.
The first Mexican shipments from the southern state of Chiapas crossed the border Feb. 18, and volumes will increase slowly, and won’t peak until mid-March.
Strong winds and late rains in mid-February in the state of Nayarit could push the beginning of the deal back in May. The rains could lead to volume and quality issues.

Rare, unusual or just hard to find?

That's a specialty produce item and we've got it!

Why would you use specialty produce items? Specialty items, like the rambutan in the photo, help 'kick things up a notch' and create excitement for customers to dine out instead of eating in. They also provide a way to differentiate your menu with a signature item.

Don't know where to start? Give your sales executive a call to learn more. Orders placed by 10:30 will be here for the next delivery day. A few items may require a 48 hour delivery.

Here are a few items to get you thinking:

• Orange baby bunch carrots with tops - Check out our sale price!
• Exotic tropical fruits
• Wild domestic mushrooms and wild imported mushrooms
• Fresh herbs
• Baby vegetables
• Specialty lettuces

Are you inspired?

Peddler's Son Tour 2010

We have built our business on a foundation of basic principles that include great service, great quality, honest prices and loyalty to our customers and employees. Our home is your home! We are proud of our facility and would be honored to show it off to you and your staff. We can show you everything from how your product is received, to how it is stored in our coolers that are temperature specific to the product that they store, down to how your order is picked and delivered. You will also meet the best team in the business that makes it all possible for us to provide you with the great product and customer service that we strive for. Just ask a representative and we can schedule a tour. Our goal at Peddler’s Son Produce, is to build lasting relationships.

We love Yelp!

Bravi Italian Kitchen hosted our January Tweetup. Gabi, from Yelp, joined us to learn more about Yelp for Business Owners. This is a wonderful tool that offers businesses the ability, through a business account, to keep customers updated with special offers and announcements, send private or public messages and track your business's page views. Yelp even created a video to walk you through all of tools and you can check it out here.

In my opinion, local and real-time search are the future. Yelp now gives us more tools to work in this environment and I can't wait to see how things progress.

What do you think about local search? Do you Yelp? Do you comment on other sites? What about other social media tools?