Hansard Association of Canada
31st Annual Conference

August  17 to  21, 2004
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Growing a Winning Team

MR. ROBERT KINSMAN (Nova Scotia): Quiet, please. Are you still here? When are you people leaving? (Laughter)
   We have a special speaker with us this morning and the group that represents him has given me a little introduction and I will just read it and then we'll listen to what he has to say.
   "Whether he's interacting with his customers at Pete's Frootique, or harvesting fresh cooking ideas for his television fans, Pete Luckett is Canada's favourite greengrocer and one of Canada's leading, independent retailers. His newest television series The Food Hunter airs on Food Network Canada." It's a very good show. "The Food Hunter in the U.S." - sorry, somebody didn't give me the right paper.
   "As the food hunter, Pete whisks viewers to many exotic corners of the globe, exploring the origins of our food and sharing his mouth-watering experiences. On the business front, Pete knows how to cultivate a successful business. Creativity, innovation and the ability to differentiate yourself from the competition are Pete's three cornerstones.
   Sleeves rolled and spirits high, he mentors his staff in the delivery of an over-the-top customer care program that has earned Pete's Frootique, the Canadian Independent Grocer of the Year Award in 1999, and again in 2003. Later this year Pete's empire will grow to include a second location in Halifax - Halifax's prestigious Spring Garden Road area." You notice I had to do a little editing on this. (Laughter) "This market will deliver all of the quality, value and experience offered in his first store but with a funky, urban twist. This store adds an additional staff complement" misspelling (Laughter) "of over 100, raising the bar more than ever to maintain the high service benchmark that Pete, himself, has established."
   Capitalize (Laughter) "He's up for the challenge and eager to share some of his most effective strategies with you today. Here's a sample of what Pete does every day."

[Video presentation] (Applause)

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. PETE LUCKETT: I hope I don't get critiqued as much as my intro got critiqued. (Laughter) I'll have a word with my people and I'll have your people speak to mine about that, yes, that's right.
   I understand you've been in Nova Scotia a few days and I certainly hope you've enjoyed yourself. By the looks of some of the red eyes this morning, yes, that's right, you all did.
   I was just speaking to two fabulous Scottish lasses who are just heading up to Cape Breton for the day, they're omitting my presentation - oh, I'm just devastated, they're off for a great time.
   I'm going to talk about several things I do in the everyday life of a greengrocer today and probably one of the key factors you asked me to talk about is building a winning team. I call it planting a seed, adding a little water, and growing a winning team. Is it as easy as that? Flippin it, no, it's not. There are no overnight successes or formulas for building a great business, so is there no overnight fix for building a winning team. It's a challenge that never goes away and certainly in the growth of Pete's Frootique over the years, it certainly is a day-to-day challenge which is always there.
   We're about to see a much bigger challenge, we have 130 employees at the Bedford store and if you've not been there, if you are from out of town, I would encourage you all to pop in and spend some cash with Pete, I know you'll love it and have a great time, too. We're about to double the number of employees. We're opening up a gorgeous store - wish you were here for that one - just downtown, off Spring Garden Road, which is going to be a terrific flagship store. I'm really revved up and excited about it, it's going to be gorgeous, all what you see here, a little bit bigger. We have some great design looks, a mood and ambience which are all a part of putting your customers in the mood to spend money, which we really try to do in our business and recognize it's sometimes lacking in our competitors - they've got the goods and commodities but they don't create that mood which is such a part of survival in business today.
   I always believe that in order to build a winning team, to have a staff who are passionate, excited, tuned in, revved up, you have to have a bit of a vision for them. It just can't be a job without a vision or a future of what are we doing here. Over the years I've certainly realized and still develop our team in sharing that vision of where our business is going and certainly being an active part of that growth, each individual person who works for the Frootique. In order to share that vision you've got to have something that they're going to be working towards.
   For us it's variety, it's quality, it's attention to detail, it's excellence, it's over-the-top customer-service-care package. We try to do the works, as well as have the best product, the best variety, products from every corner of the globe on every day of the week; it's a challenging business.
   In our business the product is dying by the second, it's not getting better. Actually, now that I'm in the wine business it's kind of the opposite, it does get better by the week. But the fresh inventory of the produce world, the sense of urgency attached to our business is incredible. You have to live it, sleep it, dream it, breathe it, to make it work and happen every day. So I'd like to share with you some of the stuff we do at the Frootique, what our vision is and talk about how I cope with the day-to-day challenges of building a team.
   This is where it all started for me - actually, not where it all started, after I left England in 1979, I sold my fruit and vegetable business in Victoria Market in Nottingham and I left on a round-the-world adventure. I spent two years travelling the globe doing a bit of everything, some pretty wild stuff which I could talk about for hours but I've only got one hour today.
   A couple of years later, on arriving in Saint John, New Brunswick, broke, down and out, $300 left to my name, this was my first Canadian venture, a little self-employed fruit and vegetable business, so that was it right there. It wasn't really anything fancy, I didn't do all the right things that you're supposed to do when you start a business, like interview the public, do surveys, ask them if they'd buy fruit and vegetables from me if I set up a business, none of that. This was just a last-ditch attempt at survival.
   I went down to the local wholesalers and bought $250 worth of fruit and vegetables from a company called Willett Foods, it was in Saint John, New Brunswick, they were the main wholesale distributor of fresh food at that time. I got myself a little vegetable stand built just out of a few two-by-fours, a bit of canvas, some old boxes, my cash register was a money belt, my scales were an illegal set of household kitchen scales so for $300 I was in business, that was it, that's where it all started.
   When I tried to get a stall in the middle of the Saint John City Market, built in 1876, there was no space for me. All of the empty other little stalls were reserved for the farmers who arrived in the Spring and Summer with their local vegetables, they were saved for them so there was no space. I begged and pleaded with the clerk of the market to give me a space and I got this little place on the back side of the market where nobody ever went, it was a little side street to the market. I remember it like yesterday, this is April 1982.
   I was proud as a peacock, set my little fruit stand up and I called it Pete's Frootique, of course, because Pete's Frootique was my stall in Victoria Market back home in England. That was a tiny little fruit stand and I had my mum, my sister, my cousin, all working behind this little fruit stand - how about a pound, two pounds of bananas, come and get it. We used to do all these shouts, yells, hollers - not that we liked shouting, it was all a part of creating the mood excitement and attracting customers to our place to do business. We had all little tricks I should share with you.
   You know the old scales without these electronic digital scales you have today, on the old-fashioned scales you used to hang the little dish, we didn't have any electronic cash registers, everything was mental arithmetic, you did it all in your head. Everything went in a brown paper bag and customers weren't allowed to touch the produce - can you imagine that? Oh, what a dream. That's right, yes, squeezing, pushing fingers in, oh, drives me crazy but anyway, they weren't allowed. (Laughter)
   Some of the greengrocers were so bad they had sticks. If a customer touched on the display he'd hit them on the back of the wrist and say, go on, get off. It was strictly taboo to handle the produce. We had mountains and pyramids of colour, all set up in tissue papers and we used to serve everything from behind the display. I should share with you - I'm getting carried away here - just a couple of little stories just to relate what goes on in the world of profitability of a greengrocer.
   The profit margins in fresh produce can be - this is not a sob story, this is the truth - very, very slim and you really have to work hard to make every little penny work. Everybody buys grapes; when you display them, you take all those lovely bunches of grapes out of a box, many times left in the box there's a whole bunch of loose grapes left in the bottom, right. That can sometimes be a profit, it can be half a pound or it can be a pound of loose ones rolling around in there. What do you do with them? Well, today we pack them up in little pints and sell them as pints of loose grapes or we give every kid who comes in the store a treat, we give them a few loose grapes. But back in the old days what we used to do, serving from behind the counter, a customer would arrive and say, a pound of grapes, please. I would say, no problem, my love.
   We had brown paper bags at the back of the counter, right, and one of the keys to being a good greengrocer was the flick, you'd flick open the brown paper bag, all in one action you would twist it round and it would open up, like that. So if you flick it open you'd pick up the bunch and say, how about that one, darling, give her a wink and smile and you'd pop it in the bag. But what the customer didn't see was in the brown paper bags at the back of the counter we used to put loose grapes in the bottom of every bag, right. We used to flick it open and say, how about that one and they wouldn't see the loose grapes in the brown bag.
   On the scale, if you were fast on the scale, when you put it on the scale and the hand comes down, before the hand is settled, right, because it comes back and settles again, you get an extra three ounces every time, right. That's right, yes, on the scale. (Laughter) I had my mum working for me, right. I had to teach my mum these little tricks, oh my goodness.
   The customer would get the loose grapes when they get home and they'd think they had fallen off the bunch, it was like magic, a perfect way to get rid of your loose grapes - until one day I had this new Saturday girl working for me and we had the grapes all set up in piles like that, we had green grapes, red grapes and black grapes (Interruption) you said it, she was colour-blind, I know she was. They got red in the green and green in the red, oh, it got me into more trouble. Those were the good old days, and I could tell you a lot of stories about the fruit and vegetable markets of England.
   I didn't realize it at the time that it would be such a great learning ground for me that I could use a lot of those philosophies from working on the streets, working the barrows, the market, the pushcarts, the greengrocer stores and apply those techniques. Even today, we apply those, not the scales, I should share with you, but just the work ethics and how to merchandise and sell produce.
   This is the store, anyway, this is where it all started. I remember it like yesterday. My first customer came walking across this street and she just spotted my fruit stand. I was standing there proud as a peacock, I was ready to go and I saw her looking at my store. So I gave her a little wink and a smile, because in England, every customer is darling, sweetie, baby, honey, love, I mean that's just the men, right.(Laughter) Chatting up the customers is a part of life.
   I saw that she headed towards my store and I said, hello darling, and I knew by the look in her eye that she'd never been called darling before in her life and I thought, oh, I made a right bloomer here. I was just weighing up the situation and I saw a little twinkle in her eye, so I moved in for the kill, right (Laughter) And I sold her three red apples that day, I remember it just like it was yesterday and that's how it all started, just a one-man band.
   When you're a one-man-band operation it's easy to control and be in charge of your own destiny. I was the truck driver, the president, the janitor, the head cashier, the merchandiser, I was the works, right, looking after everything came easy and natural. But, of course, when I started, business grew from this little fruit stand and before I know it, after two months I 'm hiring my first person, my second and before I know it, I've got three or four people working for me and I've moved into the inside of the market. I got myself a little permanent fruit stand inside.
   It was good while I was on my own but, of course, when you've got people working and not doing the right thing, not displaying the fruit right, not bagging the groceries right, not talking to the customers in the fashion that I want them to talk to them, oh my God. I became known as "hire em-fire em" Luckett. Every day it would be, get out of here. My philosophy in those days was, the beatings will stop when morale improves. (Laughter) That's right, yes. You can't run a business that way and they were the good old days. It's like the old army philosophy, beat it into em!
   Today, I know sometime along the way, the growth of Pete's Frootique, I did do a three-sixty and now I'm all about staff retention, keeping our staff, nurturing them, training them, making them feel excited about coming to work, all very difficult things to do, but times have moved on.
   In New Brunswick, the store did grow in the market and I opened up four more other stores in New Brunswick, a wholesale distribution, supplying the hotels and restaurants, and in 1992, I sold it to my brother and sister who came over from England, too, and they're still in New Brunswick today, looking after the operation up there.
   So in 1992, I moved to Nova Scotia and I got myself a stall just out in Bedford, 20 minutes away from here, and it started off as a wee little stall, it was only 1,800 square feet and I think we started off with about 10 employees. It was so cram-packed, it was inside a shopping mall, an unusual location for a fruit and vegetable operation, but we were so jammed we used to spill out every day out into the mall, always getting into trouble with the mall police and how much space we could take. Customers had to walk sideways to get through the store, we got that much stuff in there, it was pretty wild.
   We managed to move and locate to the end of the mall and that's where we still are today and it's 12 years later, the store has grown, it's 20,000 square feet now and we have 130 employees, you saw in the little video, that work in the store. It's a wild place, it's a giant challenge to cope under one business with many different functions now, not just fruit and vegetables but we' ve got the wine store, we've got the Pete's Power Juice Bar, the meat shop, the delicatessen, the floral, we've got a bit of everything out there at the Frootique these days.
   Here's a picture of the Frootique, you saw it a bit on the video, it's a very cluttered experience. We have a lot of stuff just piled up through there to create that ambience because I think it's so important. The longer customers stay in a store, the more money they're going to spend. The store is, in fact - I'll show you right here - there's Pete's Power Juice Bar, by the way, we sell 57 fruity concoctions, everything from mango tango, to blueberry moon, to vegetable/apple/carrot and ginger. We've got it all there and it's all made from - are you okay with that translation back there, darling? Should I slow down a bit or what? Holy shamozie, I forgot about them back there, yes. Blueberry moon, okay, babe? Ma petite cherie (Laughter) I can get away with a bit of stuff like that now and then. Not you, mate, that one, right. (Laughter)
   There's the juice bar. Do you know what customers say to me that tickles my fancy more than anything? It's not Pete, I love your product, I love the ambience, I love this store, it's when they say to me, Pete, you've got great staff. Where do you get your staff from? That tickles my fancy more than anything else because I know today, that is our big mandate at the Frootique, staff development, staff retention, keeping them, getting them pumped up, knowledgable and becoming great communicators with our customer base.

[10:15 a.m.]

There's one of our girls at the juice bar. People say to me, Pete, why are your staff all so happy? They're all smiling. It's the pills we put in the coffee in the morning, that's right, yes. I've got some if you need some.
   Here's our meat store. I didn't realize when we opened our meat operation that timing is everything in life. This is Dave Kelly our British butcher. We came up with the name, The British Butcher - Britain being famous for their fabulous cuts and displays of meat but, of course, we didn't realize that just the week we opened up, bingo, mad cow disease, foot and mouth. Customers coming in said, Pete, is that meat British? No, darling, no, just the name. But we have kept the name and it's all little businesses with the umbrella of the big Frootique market.
   This is our fishmonger, there he is, Dennis. A star and very knowledgable chap right there. He does a great job, one of our star performers, right there. Fruit baskets, this is Tanya, she does a great job, we do a very large fruit basket program. Every fruit basket that leaves the Frootique, leaves with a tag on, so not only is it a little profit department for us, but it's constantly advertising and sowing the seeds of spreading the word of Pete's Frootique. Everybody who receives a basket, bingo, I hope, too, one day they will send a basket to someone else because they were so thrilled and inspired about it and they've got all the information right on the tag.
   Here's the deli line. This is our lunch line at the deli. We've become quite famous for our sandwiches that we do. Jeff, who's not actually in this picture, but our deli manager, when we get a lineup at the deli - go back to customer satisfaction, there's nothing worse than standing in line as a customer, whether you're at the bank, or trying to buy some auto parts, or whatever it may be, you're standing in line, there are one or two people behind the counter working, there are five or six behind them, doing what appears to you as doing nothing. There's nothing worse, right. You get so fidgety and frustrated, expecting to have better service. Why aren't they rushing to the counter? It's just a part of life.
   Customer service in Canada is still weak, really, and to be great at customer service, if you're great at it and when you receive that experience, it's like a breath of fresh air. It's like, wow, you want to tell the world about it. Well, Jeff, our deli manager, we get quite big lineups at our deli, lunch, salad, soup line up at lunchtime and they get lined up way back because we've got great sandwiches, especially on Sunday mornings on the way to the airport. (Laughter)
   In the lineup, when they get lined up, to keep our customers happy while they're standing in line, Jeff will actually say, okay, any of you customers out there today who can sing me a song, you get a free lunch. I guarantee you, every time we get a lineup, somebody puffs up, stands back, takes a deep breath and signs a song. Is it funny? Oh, it's hilarious. Customers become their own entertainment. Does anybody worry about standing in line? No, they're part of the action, we've created a bit of theatre.
   When people say to me, Pete, what business are you in? I don't tell them I'm in the fruit and vegetable business, I tell them, we're in the feeling good business, babe. At 8 o'clock in the morning, when the gates open on the store, it's show business, babe and that's what we try to do at the Frootique. Every day is a show, it's a performance, it's not just selling fruit and vegetables, it's creating a little excitement there.
   This is our British store, and we sell everything, the works, Branston's pickle, jams, jellies, marmalades, British cheeses, anything from Britain, we sell at our British store. I'm a great believer, too, once again trying to create atmosphere, trying to give it a look, the stuffed life-sized Queen Mum on the wall, she's all a part of it. The floor, do you know what we did with the floor, I wanted to create that old-fashioned store look and I was looking for some nice wide boards to give it the real old-fashioned store look, couldn't find any but Happy Harry 's Used Building Supplies sells all sorts of old remnants, junk, bits of old building stuff, you buy great deals there.
   These floorboards are actually old scaffolding planks and they only cost $2 each, for a big long plank. They were scruffy, but we put them in there, we laid them all out, we couldn't get them to butt up, so we did this thick grouting in between every plank, we sanded them all off, and we had to put this fire retardant on to keep the Fire Marshal happy, and bingo, this floor looked like it was 200 years old. It's unbelievable. Customers come in the store and they go, wow, love this store, Pete, it's fabulous, just gorgeous, the floor, where did you get the floor. I say, actually, we salvaged the boards off the HMS Tipperary, it went down off the coast 200 years ago. They go, no shit. I say, yeah, we did, mate. You have to tell them what they want to hear, right? So this is our British store.
   The wine business. Just over a year ago, Nova Scotia granted four private liquor licences for independents to get into the sale of wine and spirits. So after a year and three months in the business, we've had a great year and we have a great selection of wine, a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge which really gives us the edge over our corporate, government competition. It's a great store for us.
   This is Stevie. You saw Stevie on the video. Stevie is our resident piano player. You might say, what's that all about, a piano player in a fruit and vegetable business? We don't have an advertising budget by the way, I don't do newspapers, flyers, coupons, discounts, we don't do any of the above. I like to think that every customer who leaves the Frootique is our walking advertisement, because we do deliver with the goods. As a part of that, we add a little sizzle with Stevie. He plays 45 hours a week, up above the grape display, and he's like on steroids, he does everything. He does happy birthday, anniversary, the Backstreet Boys, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Tchaikovsky. If I get a good-looking babe coming into the store, I give Stevie the cue, and Steve breaks into, "Oh, Pretty Woman, shopping at Pete's Frootique, pretty woman." Oh, you want to see them, they get their shopping cart, they go wild, they go crazy, right there. Translate that one, darling. (Laughter)
   So there is Stevie, and he's really a part of our team. He brings inspiration and excitement to the whole team. When Stevie's not playing, the whole store seems to go down a tone; when he plays, it just brings the energy right up. I've not been able to find another - we're opening a new store downtown very shortly. Oh my goodness, what am I going to do for a dynamic piano player, because out of all the sub-ins we've had for Steve when he's on vacation, we've never found anybody with the energy that Steve has. He 's a dynamo. So we're looking. Any piano players out there? Want to change your life? We're looking for one.
   Traffic flow, all a part of the store. A lot of stores actually design - supermarkets especially - I call them, with runway aisles. People tend to run through them. We've designed the Frootique not by mistake but by design, where you have to weave all around the whole store. It's like a maze, when you get in you can't get out. This is all a part of the look of the Frootique. Here's a little display. Talk about niche marketing, here's a little niche right here that we built. This is all East Indian and Asian vegetables, everything from carilla to long beans to bitter lemon to sugar cane to different types of hot peppers, banana flowers, these are all things that really cater to a lot of our ethnic groups that shop at the Frootique. The big stores, they can't do this, this is real hands-on, caring for speciality stuff. It makes it, once again, a niche destination for the Frootique.
   There's all the British products behind, right there, Heinz baked beans, ambrosia, rice pudding, Thornton's chocolates, Cadbury's Fruit and Nut, the best. It all starts here. There's the parking lot. No matter what business you're in, the look, the image, the user-friendliness way you run your business, it all starts out in the parking lot. Is it easy to find parking, is it clean, is it tidy, does it work? This is it. Signage, we've always been about signage and exposure, and trying to get every last bang for the buck, utilizing every square inch in the store and out of the store.
   Here's the entrance. Because the store is designed like a one-way store, this is the way you enter, you exit over at the far side. Advertising, we don't have an advertising budget, but if you've been around town this week, hopefully you might have seen one of our four trucks delivering to all the hotels and restaurants in downtown Halifax, because that, too, has become a part of our business. These become driving billboards. We keep them sharp, clean, tidy, flashed up. Did you seen that new show on television called, Pimp my truck or pimp my van? Did you see? I can't believe it. Well, this is one of them vehicles. That 's right, Pete's "pimped fruitmobiles". That's right. (Laughter)
   First impressions of any business - so important, first impressions. Lee is our doorman. He greets every customer coming through the door. Because the store is designed on a one-way, in and out, a lot of our more unscrupulous customers will actually get in produce in the store and exit through the in door without actually paying for their stuff. Hard to believe, but it happens. So rather than hire a big bruiser with security stamped across his back to stand at the door, we employed Lee, a black belt in karate, this boy right here. That's right. He greets them, but he also stops the bad guys going out right there. Another part of trying to differentiate ourselves from the regular experience.
   Here are my four basics for any business to survive. The four basics, there they are. Quality, today there's no excuse; customers are spoiled for choice more than ever before in the world of quality, you have to have great quality. Presentation, customers buy with their eyes. You can't fool the public today, stuff has to look sharp, bright, clean, presentable, user-friendly, it has to be shoppable. Value, we 're not the cheapest player in town, but I guarantee you we give the best value, the best bang for the buck in freshness. Service, goes without saying. You have to smother your customers today with affection. You have to tell them you love them, and you have to be there for them. But over and above that, those are the four basics, what I call, of any business today. If you're not good at these four today, you're out of business. You are gone and out of business, because competition is so tough, the bar has been raised in the world of retail selling today. So you have to be great at that.
   How do you step it to another level? How do you move up? Well, it's this one right here. This is where I' m going, actually, I'm trying to tell you about the vision of Pete's Frootique and the standards of excellence that we try to get all our staff to share. In order to create that great team, they have to live and breathe and believe all that I've been talking about in the last 20 minutes, and added to that, we try to create experiences. Experiences can apply to every industry, no matter what your business. Basically there are all sorts of trendy words for it in today's business world, they call it emotion marketing - reaching out to your customers' emotions.
   It can be a giant, big promotion you do, a big carnival promotion of different products, it can be the smallest things from just reaching out to your customers with little interactive moments between your staff and the customer, it may be carrying the bags out to their car, it may be remembering how that melon was last week, Mrs. Smith, that I picked out - was it ripe enough, was it sweet, was it gorgeous? - experiences can mean anything. We try to create big and small experiences at the Frootique.
   All my staff have to be tuned into living the experience. There have even been books written about it now, and what we have with our great team of managers - at the Frootique in Bedford, we have a team of 14 dynamic managers and their assistants - we have a managers' book club. Every month we try to come up with a new book for our managers which may be inspirational, it may be something interesting for them to read, as we try to develop our team constantly. This is one of the books. Joe Pine and James Gilmore wrote this book called The Experience Economy. What tickles my fancy is that what he talks about, it's this very technical book, is it's everything that I believe in. It's a great read for me, because I'm going, yeah, yeah, right on. It's very technical, it's a fabulous book for our managers. One of the quotes out of the book is, make it an experience, not just a transaction. It really is something,
   This guy, Joe Pine travels the world as a first-class speaker. He's up there. He came to Nova Scotia this Spring, for the Nova Scotia Tourism Conference, just down at Pier 22. He came in and spoke. I didn't realize it, I had been kind of talking to this guy a couple of times, he lives down in the States, and he actually uses Pete's Frootique as an example of the experience economy in his slide show. I was just like, whoa, Joe, I hear you're coming to Nova Scotia, you have to pop into the Frootique.
   So the week that he arrived, just coincidentally, I got, just by coincidence - we normally sell about five or six pallets all week of those golden-ripe pineapples. Do you know the golden-ripes? It's like when my wife married me, she says, Pete, now I've tried the best, I can't go back to the rest. It's the same. (Laughter) It's true. It's the same with those golden-ripe pineapples. When you try the golden-ripe, they're high sugar, low acid, you just can't go back to a regular pineapple. They're more expensive, but they're incredible.
   That weekend that Joe Pine arrived, I bought a whole tractor-trailer load, it was a kick-back load. The supermarket rejected it down in the States, we bought it out of Philadelphia and we bought a whole 22 skids of pineapples. We brought it into the store that weekend. We had pineapples everywhere. Me and staff, we often get dressed up in carnival attire at the Frootique, just to have a bit of fun and excitement. So here we are at the Frootique, we get dressed up, this is the pineapple. I was telling Joe - this is Joe Pine - we bought these pineapples as a tribute to your name, Joe Pine. That's right, and he believed me. (Laughter) All right, Joe. So there we are.
   What do experiences do to a business? Well, I believe they do many things. Apart from winning the hearts of your customers, every business today wants loyal and satisfied customers. That's what every business is trying to get, loyal and satisfied. Well, I believe, having all the basics in place, you can't go to an experiences level without being great at the basics, because you have to have them first. Once you have the basics in place, to add sizzle and experience to the basics, I believe it bridges the gap between satisfaction and loyalty. A satisfied customer may shop at a store, and if interviewed afterwards may say, "what was the experience like?" Well, it was all right, okay, not bad, the product was all right, the service at the cash register, well, indifferent; a loyal customer, when they' ve been interviewed after doing business with you, they're raving about you, it was fantastic, it was fabulous, I want to tell the world about it, I want to tell my neighbours about it.
   Loyal customers become your best advertisement. I really think one thing leads to another when you have that loyalty base out there. Here are some of our girls who work at the juice bar. We run around the store, we give our customers samples, on a daily basis, of all our juices. These are the lads working at the lunch line there, the deli lunch line.
   So, that's kind of what we do. How do we do it, and how do we work the magic? What I do - not a worry, but certainly a concern of me, Pete Luckett, as we move to the big store, when I moved from New Brunswick to Nova Scotia and I sold my brother the business, and my sister, in New Brunswick, I moved down here, I said never again, I'm just going to have one store, excellent, attention to detail, have a great team. Twelve years later, after saying that, never say never, because here we are, we're going again, and we're going to build an incredible second store. I do lie awake a bit at night just thinking about the challenges of developing a team overnight, hitting the ground running with 100 new people. I know we' re going to have a giant task on our hands, but it is exciting as well.
   The cost of losing people these days is brutal to any business, the cost of retraining, if you lose somebody. So how do you get your team to stay with you and be loyal? Well, I think you have to tell them a story, for a start, every day, you have to be a great communicator. As a leader or leaders of your business, you have to communicate every single day with your staff. I think the biggest weakness I 've known over the years, why staff get disgruntled, is not the pay packet, it's the relationship and the communication within the organization. There's nothing worse, I know, for a staff member to feel left out, not being a part of the sharing situation, not being knowledgeable about what's going on. Staff want to feel a part of the team. Gone are the old days when we used to hide everything, all the numbers, the figures, the profits were all Pete's private little numbers right there. Those days are gone. I do share all the numbers today with our staff. There are no secrets. Our staff not only gets rewarded for their efficiency, their profitability, they're accountable for many things, team building, providing harmony in their departments, but they do get to see the numbers.
   We do have a management team meeting every two weeks now. It takes about two hours. I never would have dreamed of it years ago, of sitting down with people for two hours and wasting two hours of time when we could be displaying, serving, chatting up the public, but I know it's been a major step forward as the Frootique has developed. Four years ago I actually hired my ex-bank manager, Rod Glover from the Royal Bank. Every time I'm out and about, I've always got one of my business cards, if I see somebody who tickles my fancy, whether I'm in a restaurant, a hotel, in a shop, anywhere, I always pull out my business card and say, if you're looking for a job, I would love to hire you. When you see people who've got that right attitude, that right sizzle that would fit the culture of the Frootique, I want them.
   I joked with Rod Glover, my bank manager several years ago, Rod, if you're ever looking for a job, you'd be a great part of the team. So, he got a package from the Royal Bank, it was either take a package or move to Toronto. Where is Toronto? (Laughter) That's right. I know it's somewhere out there, that's right. Anyway, he chose to actually stay and came to work for the Frootique. He has been a monumental part of the Pete's Frootique transition from me, a sort of back-pocket businessman spinning the plates every day, just trying to keep the whole business going, to building some structure in my business. Boy, oh boy, I've never looked back. I realized it was a major stepping stone as we transition into development and retention and building a great team. He's certainly been a part of it.
   So, finding great people who not only can be experienced in the job they do but have the right attitude to take a team and to lead a team, to a communicate from a team, the biggest factor as we've grown is that communication. Not getting the right message out to all the different levels of structure in our business, that is the biggest weakness and the biggest challenge of every business. When you look at businesses which are successful on the front, and you look behind the scenes, you'll find, quite often, a very intricate successful structure of a communication system, and that's it, bang on the nose. Easy to talk about, hard to implement, because in the running of daily lives, oh, I don't get a chance to talk to this, I can't get you, I can't get to it, you have to prioritize it. You have to prioritize communication in your life to build a great team, I believe.
   How do we select the pick of the crop? Well, interview, right there. It all starts right there. Actually we're just in the process of hiring our first human resources person. I've gotten by all this time without having a human resources manager, but up until this time Rod Glover has been our human resources manager. His philosophy, he interviews at 7:00 o'clock in the morning, that's all part of it. He believes that if they arrive on time at 7:00 o'clock, you 're off to a good start. If they look good at 7:00 o'clock in the morning, you're off to a great start. This is a part of his philosophy. Sometimes we hire just for the fact that they can walk, talk and breathe, because you need somebody fast sometimes. But when we 're getting down to it, for picking the right crop, Rod is our man. That 7:00 o'clock in the morning interviewing process has been a great step.
   Hiring practices, well, what do we look for? We look for not only experience, we don't always hire for experience, but we hire for attitude. We ask our people, when we hire them, do they love food, do they like to cook, do they like fruits and vegetables, because that is a part of it, you have to have that understanding of food to develop it further, to have that passion. If those basic skills are right there - the times we've actually hired from our competition have not always been successful because they've not fitted the bill. On the other hand, my competition loves to hire from Pete's Frootique, they love ex-Pete's Frootique staff, they get hired instantly.
   About two years ago the Barrington Street Loblaws/Superstore was opening up just down the way. I had recently let a guy go, it really cheesed me off because if somebody is stealing, I want to fire him. I couldn't catch this guy but I knew he was stealing from me, oh my gosh, I knew but I couldn't catch him. In the end I just had to give him a layoff slip which kind of cheesed me off, right, because it means he can get pogie on a layoff slip, if you fire him he can't. There you go, that's another story.
   The following week I got a call from this Superstore human resources personnel and the produce manager they had in the new store said, Pete, we've got one of your ex-employees here looking for a job. They said, what can you tell us about him? Well, I didn't know who I was speaking to so I said, between you and me over the phone, I don't want to say anything but if you arrive in the morning at my office, I'll give you the whole scoop.
   The next morning they were there at 8 o'clock. I said, come on in, shut the door. I said look, here's the scoop, between you, me and these four walls - this will never go out of here, it will never be written on paper - I know the guy was stealing from me. Would I rehire him? Not a chance. Oh, Pete, we appreciate the information, thanks a lot, mate, see you later. So off they went out the door. I never thought to hear anything more about it. I said, don't repeat this to this guy whatever you do, because I'll deny it.
   A week later the phone rang, the ex-employee called me up. I was a bit suspicious right away and he said, Pete, I just want to talk to you a minute. I just want to talk to you about what you said to the Superstore guys. Oh my God, I couldn't believe it. I thought they told him he was stealing, right. He says, Pete, I just want to thank you, I got the job, I appreciate your reference and I start on Monday. (Laughter) I thought, can you believe that, they even hire my thieves now, that's right, yes.
   With hiring practices what we look for are people who are interested in what we do, who we think can share the vision, that they understand the culture. Do they look right? Do they look a right fit regardless of what it says on their resumé because resumés can fool you. They look great on a resumé but that resumé compared to that human being sitting right in front of you can be two different things. So can they fit the culture of what we do at the Frootique is certainly a part of it.
   Career building. One time the food business, especially the retail business, was considered if you can't get a job anywhere else in life, if you're a dropout from school or college, or if you're on an ex-AA program, or you're an illegal, or whatever, if you can't get a job anywhere else, you go and get a job at a food store, it's a job going nowhere. The world has changed. The world of food is such an exciting career these days. We're on the start of a wave of a whole new era - everywhere there are food magazines, food TV, food radio, great restaurants. Canada is a food mecca these days which is really growing and becoming an exciting place to be. To be involved in that food sales distribution, to be a part of a fresh food little mini-empire, I think it's fantastic with loads of potential.
   I tell all of my staff, this is a great career. Even if you don't stay with me it's a great learning ground to take what you've learned at the Frootique and apply it to another job or another industry because the basics that we teach our staff, are basics that you can apply just about anywhere.
   So experience versus attitude. If they've got experience, that's a bonus but the one big factor we hire for more than anything else, when somebody walks in for a job at the Frootique is attitude, that's the number one, that they can fit our culture and work in harmony with that team that we've got.
   Positive customer experience begins with passionate performers. It's hard to find passionate performers, they're not always there instantly. We've had every combination of first-time applicants arriving at the store, sometimes you can say, oh boy, this boy isn't going to last a week but do you know what? Sometimes they turn into diamonds. We've had other people arrive with a resumé so thick and long it's unbelievable, they fizzle after a month.
   So there's no formula that I could give anybody on how to hire because it's all over the place. The human element which comes into all of those variables when it comes to hiring somebody, it's all over the place. You don't know what you've got until you've had somebody three months and after that time, I think you can either diss 'em, say goodbye, because you can't waste time and money developing somebody who's never going to get there with you. You want a great team to be great in whatever you do today. You can diss 'em or you can keep 'em.
   So here's what I believe. Here's what we try to do at the Frootique. Employees grow and flourish if you give them product knowledge. Just the world of fruit and vegetables today, gone are the days when it 's just 50 items: cabbage, turnips, bananas, broccoli. Now, it's: kumquats, kiwanos, passion fruit, maradol, papayas, fruit and vegetables from every corner of the globe, from China, Portugal, South America, South Africa. We have an international produce world of business today, it's really exciting where the product comes from and the variety we have.
   Product knowledge. If you give your team tools of the trade, which I believe is knowledge of your business, if you give them the tools, I believe, with that, they'll develop confidence because they feel good, they have a knowledge of what you're doing, what you have, what services you sell. Once they get confidence then, bingo, there we go.
   Communication skills. The biggest factor. When I see my staff interacting with customers on the floor where we try to teach them to multi-task, trim, work, merchandise and talk to the customers as well, this is what stands us apart from our competition - to have staff who are knowledgable, have confidence, feel good about being there and can communicate and become proactive with our customers.
   I saw a staff member in my store just the other week, it was incredible, there was a gentleman standing there with a list and he had that puzzled look on his face. He had cilantro on there, chipotle peppers and he had a few other things, a list from his wife. One of my staff saw this gentleman looking quizzical, became proactive and asked, can I help you, sir, what are you looking for? He says, I've got this list. He said, We've got a Second Cup coffee shop right outside the door and he said, sir, go and have a cup of coffee and we'll have the product picked for you, it will be ready in 10 minutes. Oh my God! How to win a customer's heart. Do you think he's going to leave there and tell the world?
   You have to listen to your customers' wants and needs. You have to be proactive, not reactive to your customer base. We've got little old ladies who come into the store - see bananas are all the same. Bananas, most of them come from South America that we sell here, in Canada. You have all your different brands DelMonte, Dole, Chiquita, Turbana, they're all there, they're all bananas with different labels on them. We get customers coming into the store and through incredible brand marketing by the boys at Chiquita, they brainwash the customers.
   Pete, have you got any Chiquita bananas? Little old ladies, right. See I don't get the Chiquita. In this part of the world Sobeys, our big corporate competition, have got the Chiquita deal tied up, really. Once in a blue moon, I do get the Chiquita bananas, once in a while. We sell the red label Dole bananas. They ask, have you got any Chiquitas? I say, just a moment darling. I go in the back room - because you see once in a while when I do get the Chiquita bananas, I always save a few stickers, that's right, yes. I come out of there, put the sticker on and say there you go, baby. Not that I want to encourage this sort of deceptive business practice, that 's right, yes. (Laughter)
   Winning your customers' hearts by listening to their wants and needs, being tuned in to what your customer base needs, being proactive, being ready for them. Anticipating what they want is so much better than reacting to a customer's wants.
   Internal/external training. We have structured training in our store, every Sunday night, one of our departments, one of our seven departments - so every seven weeks it comes around - our departments have a whole, three hour staff training session with their department. We bring them in and use the board of trade room upstairs in Bedford, we bring them in, feed them pizza, we have fun, we chop and slice fruits and vegetables, we feed them stuff, we get them pumped, we give them knowledge. That is every seven weeks, that's an effective form of training.
   But our best, most effective form of training, I think, is every shift start - because we have three shifts a day at the Frootique - our manager in charge will take his team on one side and say, okay, team, this is our goal today. These are the numbers that we're trying to reach. These are our challenges. This is a wage ratio we are going to try here to hit today versus sales. We've got some new products in, look out for those Peruvian kumquats, they're fabulous, the skin is gorgeous, the inside is not sweet or sour, make sure you sample them to every customer. The cantaloupe's a bit dodgy, put a push on the cantaloupe. Iceberg lettuce, trim those outside leaves off because they need work. Okay, we've got the team huddled, okay, team, are you with me - go get 'em, babe, go get 'em.
   That is the most effective form of training, those five minute team huddles in the morning giving your staff information for the day, giving them the goals for the day, the challenges, the potential problems that may occur. It makes them feel part of the team and it makes them feel that they're responsible for the end results of the business.
   External training. We also do bring in some experts to our business to talk to our staff because I know as much as Allah, praise the gospel according to Saint Pete, to my staff, sometimes they think - I can see it in their eyes - Pete's on again, that 's right. But when you have somebody else bring that message in with a different voice, a different style, sometimes it can be so effective, rather than just internal training. I think it's great to have a combination of both to develop staff, internal and external.
   Here's Eileen, our store manager. Eileen started with us eight and a half years ago, as a cashier. Nearly all of our staff at the Frootique have worked their way up through our system of training, development and promotion, and Eileen's our store manager here and she does a great job for us. She's a bonny lass from Scotland, she started as a cashier and now she looks after the whole show, 130 employees, so more power to her there.
   Ingredients. Then in the end are ingredients that I like for all our people. These are what we try to get them to. We try to get our staff so they are knowledgable, that they are great communicators, that they have stamina - our business is an incredible business that requires a lot of energy and effort. It's a very physical - apart from being mental - job that requires, still, a lot of lugging, lifting and loading, merchandising, so we definitely need stamina. We need passion, we need people who can get excited and feel the love in that world of food. So these are the ingredients that we try to work to with our people.
   I would have never believed years ago that I would be sharing what I do with my staff today, but there they all are. Delegation, empowerment - not that we actually give them physical ownership but certainly, in our bonus structure for our managers, it makes our staff feel that they are very much a part of the business and responsible.
   This is Cameron Purdy, what a character he is, right there. Do I have time to tell you a story? Yes. Talking about being under pressure. Being under pressure is also a great motivator for people and I've always been a great believer that under pressure does amazing things for your staff. Quite often, under pressure from stock can be a great motivator. Having too much stock, or too much workload can sometimes make people shine. Well, Cameron Purdy, came to me a few years ago - I think four years ago now - and said Pete, we have all the British products but all the little girls coming into the store were asking for Spice Girl products because the Spice Girls were hot. We could get Spice Girl chewing gum, these little packs of chewing gum with the Spice Girls on them, all the kids were wanting it. He says, Pete, we can get it with our English shipments but the only stipulation is we have to bring 422 cases in at a time, they'll only sell it by the pallet. He says, shall I do it? and I said, go for it, Cam; if you think we can do it, go for it.
   So we bought a whole pallet of Spice Girl chewing gum in and wouldn't you believe it, timing was everything, that first week we only sold about three or four cases and I thought, oh my goodness. At the end of the week the newspapers, the tabloids said, Spice Girls may split. Ginger Spice in the pudding club. Oh my God, I couldn't believe it, what are we going to do. Cameron says, we've got to move this product fast, if they split, we're in trouble, Pete. (Laughter)
   So he says, what shall we do? We've never really been a big advertising company. He says, why don't we have a Spice Girl look-alike competition and see if we can create a bit of excitement? I says, Cam, that's a brilliant idea, another piece of experience from little things to big promotions. So I chucked $300 into the pot and said here you go, Cam, you got a budget, do what you can with it. So, we didn't do any advertising, we put a chalkboard outside the store, Spice Girl Competition, register inside. I bought 50 T-shirts for $2 apiece, cheesy little lime green t-shirts and put Pete Power, Spice Girls on the t-shirts for a giveaway to the kids. I put in 10 fruit baskets, we hired a deejay to come and play the tunes because it was going to be a lip-synch look-alike competition and with $300, that was our competition.
   By the day before the competition, we had about 40 girls preregistered. Whew, we were shooting for 100. So the day of the competition, Sunday at 2 o'clock it started. I'm working away in the Frootique, I glance out into the mall at around 1 o'clock and I'm seeing a lot of Spice Girls walking around. They're from three years of age to 23 years of age, they've got the gear on, you wouldn't believe it. So by the time 2 o'clock came, this place had turned bizarre, instead of getting up to 100, we finished up with over 300 Spice Girl entrants that day. Chaos just came upon the whole mall. The place filled up with every Spice Girl, there was mum, dad, sister, brother, friends, neighbours, grandma and grandpa, auntie, there was an entourage of 14 people with every Spice Girl. (Laughter)
   By the time 2 o'clock came, we had the mall filled up - this is a true story - with 4,000 people. The Fire Marshal arrived, the police, they shut the doors, women were passing out, it was packed like sardines. We had the whole mall filled up, we had to get them all sitting down on the floor. We got the stage, everybody sat down, it was like Woodstock (Laughter) So, they're all down on the floor, we brought the girls up, women were beating each other with purses. We got them all up, instead of one at a time which was the original intention, we had to bring them up 10 at a time. That afternoon we played that song 30 times, "what I really really want", it did my brains in right there.
   But that day, did we sell any more Spice Girl chewing gum? No, we didn't, we had shoplifting, we had stuff wrecked, knocked over, women passing out, potential lawsuits, it was chaos. But, the next day the press were there and I slipped the girl from the press a couple of mangoes and said, in your story - she was doing a little story on the event - can you mention the whole idea of the event was about the incredible Spice Girls chewing gum. So there it was in editorial. When you get editorial written about you, it is the best. Did we sell any more Spice Girl chewing gum that day? No, we didn't. But on the Tuesday, after that hit the press on Monday, bingo, sales we're rocking and we did sell it. It took us three months to sell it but we sold that Spice Girl chewing gum under pressure from that great event that went sour, then turned great - it was a wild day. Being under pressure, a great example of what it can do. Sometimes people can fail under pressure but sometimes people can shine under it. That was Cammie, he really shined that day.
   This is up in Toronto, we got the big awards last year which was a great treat. On the trophy there we got it written up, to Pete Luckett and his dynamic team, because we're all about the team, right, at the Frootique these days. I brought it back for the staff, they were tickled pink and there we are.
   This is the Prince George Hotel, right where you're staying, here. This was one of their posters on Barrington Street just a few months ago. I took a picture of it because I loved it so much. I think it's a great hotel, you had great service? I mean, it is, I think it's a lovely spot. There's attention to detail, they're right there, We Jump Through Hoops, I just thought it was a great ad.
   Richard Branson, my hero, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Records, Virgin Rail, quite the entrepreneur. He says that mistakes are inevitable, dissatisfied customers are not and it's so true. I believe that 90 per cent of all customers that have a problem with your business can turn into more loyal customers after a great recovery. What I believe you can do, if you have a problem with one of your customers, you're able to turn that negative into a double positive.
   Customers who shop at the Frootique may spend, in a lifetime of shopping there, $46,000 if they shop there for 20 years, we love that. If we ever screw up where a customer is dissatisfied for some reason or other, what's a $35 fruit basket. Send it to that customer's house, I'm ever so sorry about the mix-up. We love you shopping there. Please take this as a token of our appreciation of your business. Keep shopping at Pete's, we love you. Sorry about the mix-up. Bingo. They can tell the world about that. All of a sudden that little, disgruntled customer becomes a customer for life because you've gone from a negative to a double positive.
   Everybody is in the business of change. One of the biggest challenges for any organization today, with a team of people, is every business is going through incredible change, trying to survive and get everybody tuned in on the same vision. Everybody has a challenge with this, of getting your whole team to share that vision of change and where the business is going.
   This is one of our manager's book clubs. Who has read the book? I'm sure some of you have in the room. There you go. If you haven't read it, it's actually an hour and a half read, what a great book. It can be for you home life, your sports team, coaching your team at work, for your own personal - this is an incredible fairy tale book that talks about these mice who live in a maze and these little people who live in a maze. Every day they go to the same place, because life is good, to get fed, they go to the same place in the maze, the cheese is always there. One day - what are you laughing at, darling? That's right.

A DELEGATE: You are talking about the conference. (Laughter)

MR. LUCKETT: No kidding, they moved the cheese.
   They talk about how every day they go to the same place to get the cheese. Businesses change. You have to look at life in a whole new way, and it's the search for new cheese. The little people in the maze keep going back every day, because they can't think outside the box, of where to go. But the mice, after a few days of not getting cheese, get smart, and they go on the search in the maze looking for new cheese. When they have found it, they realize, wow, that was great, we learned a lot during that experience of looking for the new cheese. We are now prepared, if the cheese moves again, we can move again. It's a simple book, but it's a great read. Out of all the books we've gotten for our managers in our managers' book club, I think this has been the most successful, because, like every business, we, too, at the Frootique are in incredible change right now. As we double our workforce overnight, we are faced with huge challenges.
   One of the things they say in the book, once you've found the cheese, keep smelling the cheese, being prepared to move again and adapt to change quickly. There are some great words of wisdom in this simple little hour-and-a-half read. Here's one of the quotes, if you're not prepared - and this is getting your staff prepared - a change imposed is often a change opposed. How often do you find that, if you try to impose change on your staff, unless you share with them the whole big picture and the vision and you get them onside, and you just impose a new little thing in your department, bingo, you have an outbreak, you have retaliation, you have a revolt on your hands. You have to get them onside. This book, I think, can help you.
   Here's another one, another one for our managers, sacred cows make the best burgers. How about that? They talk about change and sacred cows, and your sacred cow could be an old photocopier in your back room that's been there forever, you just can't get rid of it. Maybe it's the old secretary in the next room, she's lovely but you have to get rid of her. It can be anything, but it talks about, people are the gatekeepers of change. Your people right there on the front lines, they're the ones, unless they buy into it, your business, your structure, your culture will not change without buy-in. All right, so there we go. I'm just five minutes over time.
   In a nutshell, what have we talked about today? Well, a lot of things. I told you about the Frootique, talked about creating experiences, in any industry, no matter what you're in, creating experience and a little magic to your department or your industry can make a lot of difference in that world. Product knowledge, imperative to develop and get people tuned in and feeling good about themselves. Keep your gatekeepers informed, your front-line people have to be informed about what's going on in your business. And keep smelling the cheese, be prepared to change and move on. When I left England in 1979, my dad left me with just a few words, well, he said goodbye, but on top of that, these were his words, look at this, you'll like this, my dad always said, if you can make 'em smile while you're taking their money, you've got it made. That's right. (Laughter) I always stuck with that one.
   This is Pete, your international travelling greengrocer, until next time. Toodle-de-doo. Thank you. (Applause)

MR. KINSMAN: The first thing I wanted to say is that Pete was not responsible for that piece of paper I read, that was sent to me by someone else. So you're absolved of that. I just think we all got a lot of good tips. You don't realize how many similarities there are in all businesses, in all operations and staff, and you can use the same things. Well, I was writing these as I was listening. I hope before you leave you'll all have time to go to Pete's. I probably go there once a week, and I can tell you it is a great experience, even better than he said. I'm not going to say very much more. I think we all do share your vision when you look at putting it out that way. The last thing I'm going to say is I think the big question is whether people want to work for you or they want you to work for them, from this meeting. Thank you again. (Applause)

MR. LUCKETT: I'm going to get packed up here. I'm around for a few minutes, if you want to come up for a chat or get the address for the store. (Laughter) You have to be a promoter, right? (Interruptions)

MR. RON TREMAINE (Senate): Ladies and gentlemen, we'll just take a few minutes, and then we'll just have a quick windup, there are a couple of things to do. In about five minutes or so, we'll go right back at it. I have one question for Pete as he's packing up. What are you doing there, Pete? (Interruptions) Is there such a thing as a high-acid tomato any more?

MR. LUCKETT: You like them do you? The world of tomatoes is sometimes one of the biggest, most frustrating for customers as they search for that gorgeous-tasting cherry tomato, because many times now as we get an access to fruits and vegetables all-year round, some of them are a little bit off the ball. They're trying their best to ship product from around the globe, but sometimes they breed it for sturdiness, not for flavour, and sometimes they have to pick it a little immature so it ships around the world. So it is tough. For great tomatoes right now, there's no doubt about it, you have to go back to the roots and find somebody or find a local farm market, a local farmer or a place that sells field-grown Canadian tomatoes. They are incredible, and so many tomatoes these days are bland, really, with no sizzle, no acid bite that really gives a tomato that little edge that tastes like it's pre-salted. So many tomatoes just taste blah.
   If you ever get a chance to buy tomatoes from Israel, they do a fantastic job. Sometimes you'll buy them in the cluster tomatoes, and you'll see the Karmel brand from Israel, or you'll buy the little pints of cherry tomatoes or the little cherry clusters. Israel does a fantastic job of growing incredible tasty tomatoes. So you have to look out for them, too. It's the local, home-grown. Sometimes we get spoiled because we expect to see product all year round now. In the old days, of years gone by, there would be special seasons when the local strawberry season or the local peach season or the local tomato season comes round, that's when you know we're going to buy tomatoes, but today's consumer sees it year-round, and that fever for waiting for that special time is kind of gone and become unknown for a lot of customers. I know I'm getting carried away. It was just a simple question.

MR. TREMAINE: No more questions for Pete. Sorry, Fred. (Laughter)

MR. FRED BOUSQUET (Manitoba): Is there a difference between a grape tomato and a cherry tomato?

MR. LUCKETT: Yes, actually a good point. The grape tomato is actually a tomato that's been bred - that's for those of you who aren't familiar, they usually come in a little pint, they're the elongated little cherry tomato that resembles the shape of a grape. Usually they are quite crunchy, and usually, because they come from many different areas now, they're not made in a factory, of course, and sometimes it' s the field that a product grows in that can have all the difference as far as flavour and texture goes. Most of the time those grape tomatoes are good, the one I forgot about, they are very flavourful, and they're a great tomato. They're not the same as the cherry, they're a hybrid tomato that was actually a cherry tomato or a plum - the Roma tomatoes - that was developed and now they 've got that little shape. So you get the crunch and the flavour right there. (Interruptions)

Any other questions while I'm up here at the microphone? (Interruptions) All right, I'm gone. (Interruptions)

MR. TREMAINE: That was really great. We just have a few last-minute things to take care of here before we all hit the road, and end this wonderful week of hospitality and friendship and the odd bit of fruit - wine-flavoured - with Bob Kinsman and his crew. They've been just tremendous. (Applause) Of course you can't mention Bob without mentioning Nancy. Nancy's been a big help and deserves much recognition. (Applause)
   I have just two more things to do. This past year, my first year as president, I've had the pleasure of working with Bob Kinsman. I have to say that he's just been fantastic as secretary-treasurer, attention to detail unbelievable and pleasant to talk to, can-do attitude, all those things that Pete just described to you, Bob has. As part of the thank you, we have a little gift for Bob here. (Interruptions)
   I just wanted to say that Bob did everything, no instruction, very little instruction, in fact the only instruction I gave Bob, he didn't listen to, and that was, tuck in your shirt, Bob. (Laughter) All week long, he's been getting it. Bob, if you 'd like to come up here. Thanks for everything Bob, it's been a pleasure. (Applause)

MR. KINSMAN: Thank you.

MR. TREMAINE: One good conference leads to another good conference. Next year we're in Edmonton, we're with all our colleagues from around the Commonwealth, including the crew, I hope, that came here this year, good fun. Thanks for taking the time to come and see what we do over here, you guys, much appreciated. We loved to have you. Now, to hand the flag off to Liz Sim for our next conference in Edmonton, early August as opposed to mid- to late August, just because of the situation with travel and so forth from around the world. (Interruptions)

MR. KINSMAN: I don't think I want to be around the microphone any more. I'm just going to say thanks to everybody for coming. I want to thank all my staff for putting up with me all the time, but especially the last few weeks, and Nancy for helping me all year - all the time - but these last few weeks it's been pretty crazy, and she's still here. I just want to tell Liz that it is a lot of fun. (Applause)

MS. LIZ SIM (Alberta): I'm looking forward to it. I just want to say, while I have the microphone, on behalf of the entire Alberta delegation, thank you, Bob and Nancy and staff, for a phenomenal time this week. Thank you. (Applause)

MR. TREMAINE: Safe home, everyone. (Applause)

[The conference ended at 11:15 a.m.]