Walmart-at-the-Crossroads-FINAL-06.04.15

5. Packaged Salad Industry
Packaged salad is a relatively new product in the
processed foods industry. San Francisco-based Earthbound
Farm produced the first packaged salad in 1986 for smallscale
regional consumption. The more established company,
Fresh Express, began producing packaged salads at a
commercial level several years later in 1989. By 1990, Dole
and Ready Pac were selling their own versions of packaged
salad.
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In 1995, Bruce Taylor left Fresh Express, which his
father had founded, and created Taylor Farms, now the third
largest supplier of packaged salads in the U.S.
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Fresh
Express was bought out by Chiquita in 2005,
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which
helped the industry hit the $3 billion yearly revenue
mark in 2010.
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According to research collected by the FCWA in
2014, Walmart’s “Marketside” store brand sells numerous
Photo by Cpl. Nicole A. LaVine [Public
domain], via Wikimedia Commons
varieties of packaged salad, from light Caesar to Ranch Cobb. Through email correspondence, Bob
Anderson, the founder of Walmart’s “Great Value” store brand, highlighted Walmart’s preference to
work with suppliers large enough to fill its orders.
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This comment indicates that Walmart is likely
purchasing its Marketside salad greens from a combination of the five largest salad producers. Recalls
of Walmart’s packaged lettuce from a few of these companies further demonstrate that these five
largest businesses are indeed producers for some of Walmart’s store brands.
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The top five packaged salad producers by domestic market share (ranked in order
of descending estimated market share) are Fresh Express (owned by Chiquita), Dole,
Taylor Farms, Ready Pac, and Earthbound Farm.
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Fresh Express has somewhere between
2,000 and 4,000 employees and brought in $3 billion in revenue in 2013. This revenue represents 40%
of the domestic market for packaged salads.
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Dole is not too far behind Fresh Express with a 32%
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