Would Darth Vader blowing up Earth in a parody of the John Lewis Christmas advert make you pay attention to seasonal citrus? How about a well-known wholesaler on a beach with Daniel Craig? Why not use popular culture to liven up lists of seasonal produce?
Enter Total Produce Local – a new website and digital initiative for the multi-million pound company that celebrates its small suppliers using a series of grower video profiles and somewhat unusual market reports.
Under the leadership of wholesale veteran Charlie Hicks, the project aims to bring growers closer to end customers and has seen Hicks tour the UK over the last 12 months visiting key suppliers to Total and building up a bank of video profiles. As well as putting faces to names and satisfying the ongoing thirst for provenance, the website visually demonstrates what is in season by rotating videos as and when produce is at its best in the year.
“The flow of information is incredibly important to our customers, especially on the foodservice side where they have to build menus,” says Hicks, who joined Total around two years ago in the role of brand manager. “And if you’re writing menus without input from suppliers it’s going to cost you a lot of money. Our aim is to take that responsibility so you don’t have to worry about that any more.”
The site includes an individual guide to each depot, alongside the growing library of videos, while the aforementioned monthly video market reports allow Hicks to create what he reluctantly calls ‘info-tainment’ – livening up lists of seasonal fruit and veg with a series of parodied popular culture video clips.
“Essentially market reports are lists, so we need to liven them up – in the past I’ve used the Bond theme, John Lewis ad and Darth Vader. The idea is deliberate attention grabbing, and it seems to work. It’s about keeping people entertained and informed.”
Hicks says Total Produce is “very understanding” about his zany ideas, which is lucky considering he may need to answer the question: what did you do today? with, “green screen myself into a Vegas casino”.
Creating amusing market reports stems from Hicks’ past partnership with friend and former wholesaler Gregg Wallace; he recalls the pair writing a mushroom report full of Winnie the Pooh gags. Aside from providing helpful and added-value advice for time-pressed customers, the reports, which Hicks posts in Vimeo format, also reflect how chefs are using social media to engage with new trends, post photos of new recipes, and be part of food as an online viral trend.
Shrugging off the suggestion that wholesale isn’t traditionally one to be ahead of the curve with technology, Hicks says many small suppliers are doing the same thing, and it is often the smaller firms who are the most creative. “We might be ahead on things like video, but people are catching up. The key thing is don’t get left behind. Once chefs and customers are used to this information flow, you can’t take that away from them,” he explains, adding that the type of technology he is using is affordable for most businesses.
“Technology improves constantly and is getting cheaper. I use a very basic camera – around £300-£400. The Adobe editing software I use is around £100 a year, Twitter is free, your phone is free. It’s not about spending lots of money, it’s about finding out how stuff works and how to do it. The biggest challenge has been messing about with the software and getting that side of it right – I have a team of two consultants who helped with the design of the website, as well as Total’s IT department.”
Next up, Hicks is planning to expand his geographical reach by covering European growers as well as provide more region-specific material in the UK. “At the moment the site is about general trends in the UK, the next step is to make it even more local,” he says. “Local depots will do their own tailored updates with more and more local trends. Each depot has its own group of suppliers so we want to localise our information flow.”
