Meet the People Behind EFI: Grower Vic Smith
Vic Smith, CEO of JV Smith Companies, considers the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) “an extremely important program and a very strong strategic initiative” for his company’s future.
Smith says he first heard about EFI through industry discussion in a negative way, mostly due to the participation of United Farmworkers on the EFI executive board. But after attending a presentation by Kevin Boyle in Salinas, California in 2016, he was impressed with the EFI model. “I could see that the value of EFI was more about workforce development, empowering employees and engaging them in the work process. I’ve always believed that that’s an excellent strategy.”
Smith has since joined the EFI multi-stakeholder board as a grower representative and has partnered with EFI on a series of workforce development programs. One Baja California location has an active EFI Leadership Team and is working toward certification.
Participation in the EFI Program helped Smith to remember and reinstitute a lesson he learned early on in his career in the fresh produce industry, but had lost sight of: listening to the ideas of the people doing the job leads to a more productive operation.
This tenant of the EFI model has changed the way his managers solve problems. As a representation of the changes taking place since establishing a Leadership Team, Smith offered the following example: “Traditionally we’ve had problems during the holidays meeting production at our location in Baja California while workers want to enjoy time off. We lose 20% of the production time hours at a time when demand is very strong. So, since we’d been through the training for our certification, we decided to meet with our crew leaders and with our crew and explain, ‘We have a problem. Is there any way you could help us with this?’ They came back and said, ‘We will meet production if you make a few changes for us.’ Their requests were all just basically production-oriented good ideas that as a management team, we hadn’t thought of.”
Other notable changes Smith mentioned include the increased transparency provided through adherence to the EFI Standards as well as the fact that the jobs his company has to offer are more attractive to hard-to-come by workers because of the financial benefits and improved work environment.
Smith feels that engaging employees through more fulfilling work opportunities created by the EFI model and the benefit of premium bonuses offered to employees of EFI-certified farms will ultimately increase productivity gains and lead to a “fair partnership” between employees and the company.
“EFI is the right thing to do, and it’s the smart business thing to do. To me it’s a slam-dunk decision,” Smith said.
Drop us a note to learn out more about EFI’s workforce development programs.
