Ep. 2. The Freshmarket. The Virtual Market that Governs our Industry

For this episode, I want to focus on one fundamental concept: the FRESHMARKET. And notice I didn’t say we’re going to talk about the “fresh produce market” in general, because I’m trying to establish a very specific term, The FRESHMARKET, to describe something quite different from what you might expect.

That somewhere between the farm and your shopping cart exists an invisible market (a mental model shared by thousands of professionals) where prices are truly formed, and fortunes are made or lost in a matter of hours.

Today, we dive into one of the most important concepts in the fresh produce world: the Freshmarket. A market that exists, even though you cannot see it, touch it, or visit it; and yet it governs every transaction in this volatile industry.

So, let me offer a definition. The Freshmarket is a theoretical intermediate market specific to the fresh fruit and vegetable sector.

Professionals in the sector attribute to the Freshmarket the capacity to shape business conditions in the short term. It’s a mental model that lives in the minds of buyers and sellers and helps them agree on prices.

In this non-physical intermediate market, the perceived price references influence both the market at origin and the markets at destination after a bizarre cascade of events.

Now, you might ask: does this thing really exist? Well, if we can say that a mental model shared by professionals across the sector has the status of a real entity, then yes—it exists.

Discover more in this episode.