30 | INNOVISION MAGAZINE With 43 years of experience in the food industry, Joe Caldwell of Giorgio Mushroom Company, provided students behind the scenes insight into the fast-paced business of growing, harvesting, packaging, and shipping Giorgio Mushrooms. Caldwell has experience in numerous roles within the industry such as marketing, and engineering, operations, marketing and overseeing P&L (profit and loss). Caldwell started his career with another company in the industry, but found a home at Giorgio Mushroom Co. after a food safety business alliance was established between corporations. The Giorgio Mushroom Company started in 1928 with Pietro Giorgi growing fresh mushrooms in Temple, PA and has since grown into various other products such as Giorgio Foods, Giorgio Fresh, and Can Corporation of America. The company is now solely owned by Pietro’s grandson, Peter Giorgi, who ensures the family values and ethics are still upheld throughout the company. The business sells fresh mushrooms internationally through the company’s Fresh Pack operation, which produces roughly $500 million in sales. Their largest fresh packing operation is located not far from Kutztown in Blandon, PA. In addition to selling internationally, they sell to well-known local groceries such as Aldi’s, Trader Joes, Weis, Costco, Redner’s, and others in the area. “The Fresh Pack operation is extremely fast,” Caldwell explained, as the mushrooms are received after harvest, packed, cooled and shipped out all in the same day. This GUEST SPEAKER JOE CALDWELL is important due to their short shelf life. “Time becomes the constraining variable that pushes everything in our business,” he stated, “because if one department early on in the process falls behind, the latter departments have to rush to get the mushrooms delivered on time.” The whole process of growing mushrooms to delivering them to the customer is approximately sixty-five days, repeating continuously. “We put in new crops every single day and ship them out every single day,” Caldwell explained. Because of the short shelf life, the company must deliver mushrooms five to seven days out of the week and work with low inventory levels. They need to constantly anticipate demand based on purchase history, as Mushrooms must be packed and cooled in anticipation of customer orders and not after orders are received. “Even with these challenges, we still excel,” Caldwell said, relaying Aldi’s review that stated, “we know that you cost more than other suppliers, but your service level is better than any of the other suppliers, so we want to keep doing business with you.”
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