The waves of volatility: Insights from our new Volatility Report
By Patrick McCullough, CEO @ ProducePay
For the past three months, I’ve been discussing here how the fresh produce industry is experiencing unprecedented volatility. Unpredictable weather patterns, supply chain disruptions, and fluctuating market demands are no longer exceptions—they’ve become the norm. These disruptions are affecting every player in the supply chain, from growers to marketers, retailers, and ultimately consumers.
At ProducePay, we’ve long recognized the importance of data in making informed decisions. That’s why we launched our Annual Industry Survey a couple of years ago—to collect insights from across the globe and better understand the challenges our industry faces. But while this provided valuable insights, it quickly became evident that it wasn’t enough. Volatility doesn’t wait, and neither can we.
This is why we’ve taken the next step. This year, for the first time, we’re unveiling our Volatility Report—a comprehensive analysis that not only includes the latest results from our annual survey but also empirically dives deeper into the forces shaping our industry’s future.
The findings, though not surprising, are alarming: volatility is escalating, particularly reflecting in pricing. According to our research, in 2023, the fresh produce category experienced a 70% annualized pricing volatility at shipping point. What’s more, over 10 commodities—such as mangos, limes, broccoli, lettuce, cantaloupes, and berries—recorded more than 90% annualized volatility at the shipping point.
The level of instability in the industry creates a ripple effect through the supply chain. While it affects consumers in terms of supply availability and prices, it mostly impacts industry stakeholders—growers, marketers, and retailers – who, season after season, must deal with disruptions. This undermines long-term planning, leads to inefficiencies, and ultimately drives up costs, making it even harder for businesses to operate effectively.
Our Predictable Commerce Programs aim to provide a roadmap for stabilizing prices and ensuring consistent market conditions. But beyond our programs, we need an industry-wide approach to curb these extreme price fluctuations and create a more resilient, predictable, and sustainable market environment for everyone to thrive.
Addressing volatility is no longer an option—it’s essential if we want to secure the future of fresh produce supply.
An esteemed global business leader, ProducePay CEO, Patrick McCullough, brings to his role more than 25 years of corporate experience and deep expertise in international business development, structuring and joint ventures from leadership positions held at startups and Fortune 500 companies such as Ford Motor Company, Berkshire Hathaway and Just Energy. Prior to becoming CEO at ProducePay, he was a board member for two years, playing a vital role in ProducePay’s capital raising and more than quadrupling the platform’s gross merchandise value to almost $4 billion during that period.