Volume 3 | Issue 3 | March 2008 en español |
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Welcome to the Mango Connection - your source for news about the National Mango Board. Please forward this email to your friends in the mango industry. They can click here to sign up for their own copy of this monthly newsletter. Help us spread the word. Click on any underlined text to get more information about that item.
There seems to be much confusion about the PLU Codes for mangos. In 2008, the following codes are available to identify mangos. This information comes directly from the PLU Codes database at www.plucodes.com* and was not created by the National Mango Board. We simply want to help you understand what codes are available to help you sell different types of mangos.  In addition to these six listed above, there are four PLU numbers available as "retailer-assigned PLU codes". This means that a retailer and a supplier can agree to use one of these numbers to identify and sell mangos that for some reason don't fit into the system listed above. The retailer-assigned PLU codes are 4313, 4314, 4315 and 4316. Communication with your retail customer is critical for success if you choose to use any of these numbers. The National Mango Board is conducting a survey to gather the mango industry's opinions about the PLU code system. Please click here to complete our mango PLU survey. Your answers will help shape our recommendations to the Produce Electronic Identification Board (PEIB) about possible changes to the mango PLU system. We need your input, and the survey will take just a few minutes of your time. If you've already taken the survey, thanks very much for your time. We appreciate your input.
Don't forget to check out the Mango Crop Forecast, which is updated whenever we receive new information from any of the top producing countries for U.S. mango imports. Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua are included in the current forecast. We are expecting a forecast from Mexico at any time and will promptly update the Mango Crop Forecast document once we receive that information.
The GRAMMY Celebration is over, but we're keeping the party going on the internet. The mango industry had a big win when Extra featured Tony Abou-Ganim and the Sweet Escape mango drink on national TV. The video clip is posted on YouTube, and you can click here* to see it. We've also posted a video on mango.org with Tony showing an easy way to cut a mango. This video has some great shots of the gorgeous mango ice bar from the event, so be sure to click here to see that video. Don't forget that the GRAMMY Celebration sponsorship wasn't just about sponsoring a party for 6,000 music moguls. The true goal of the event was print, web and TV coverage for mangos to help raise awareness and drive demand. The sponsorship was the launching pad that helped us reach over 9 million consumers with your mango message.
The first consumer PR results tracker for 2008 has been posted. Please click here to see the 2008 tracker. This document covers our progress so far in the first 3 months of the year and we've already reached consumers over 39 million times with mango messages! Now is a great time to get familiar with this measurement tool, which will grow and grow throughout the year as our marketing programs happen and our results come in. On our web site, in our meetings, and here in the Mango Connection, we often use terms such as impressions and advertising equivalency to measure the success of our consumer marketing programs. The definition of these terms is included in every update of the results tracker, but we thought this would be a good time to highlight these definitions. 
Your NMB marketing team will represent the mango industry in four regional trade shows throughout 2008. These events include expos for the Southeast Produce Council, New England Produce Council and the Fresh Produce and Floral Council - northern and southern California shows. These events give us the opportunity to forge deeper relationships with the retailer community. In many cases, our Retail Account Manager will meet with the mango buyer or category manager when they have a retail meeting in the retailer's office. At these shows, on the other hand, we have the opportunity to meet the VP or Director of Produce, talk with our regular mango contact, and meet some store-level produce department managers as well. It's a great opporutnity for us to promote the mango industry's agenda. At each of these regional trade shows, the National Mango Board has a booth where we sample delicious mangos, distribute our materials and talk with the retailers. We also attend networking events associated with each show. The Southeast Produce Council held their annual convention and expo in Orlando, FL on February 21 - 23rd. In attendance were representatives of 46 different retail, wholesale and foodservice organizations. The Fresh Produce and Floral Council held their northern California expo in Pleasanton, CA on March 5th with 211 attendees.
Since our new web site launched in May 2007, the bi-lingual Mango Industry section has been very popular. That section has been visited over 3,700 times and over 13,000 pages on the site have been viewed. The crop forecast has been downloaded over 1,000 times so far. Meanwhile, we have over 400 subscribers to the Mango Connection. Communication with the industry is a top priority for the National Mango Board. We've found that the web site and emails are a fast, efficient and inexpensive supplement to our other communication efforts through meetings, personal contact and the industry organizations in each producing country. As always, we appreciate any feedback you have about our communication efforts.
The National Mango Board will host an industry outreach meeting in McAllen, TX on Friday April 4th. For more details, please visit the calendar section of mango.org.
The NMB's next board meeting will take place the week of September 22nd in Dallas, Texas. * This is a link to a web site maintained by a third party not associated with the National Mango Board. The Board provides this link as a convenience to you; the link should not be considered an endorsement by the Board of the third-party web site or the company who owns it. The Board is not responsible for the quality, safety, completeness, accuracy or nature of the content of the linked website. |
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