CEO’s Perspective: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Last month I spent a few days in Montreal visiting produce and transportation customers. I went north wondering what a trade war actually does to an industry that runs on relationships, and I came home with an answer in three parts.

According to the USDA, Canada is by far the largest buyer of American fruits and vegetables, taking over $5.1 billion in 2025. Statistics Canada reports that roughly 99 percent of Canada’s greenhouse vegetable exports go in the other direction, to us, Ninety-nine percent.

Neither country has a second option at such scale, so every program that relocates leaves both sides more fragile than it found them.

The Good

Every company I visited stayed focused on the trade, their partners, and their customers, with little appetite for relitigating what Washington and Ottawa are saying to each other.

The political climate may be boiling over, but inside a produce warehouse it’s still a cool 45°F (7.2°C), same as last year.

Full disclosure, I was not deeply familiar with Dolly Parton’s life or her catalogue. When our hosts learned I live in Nashville, they wanted to know what her passing meant to the city.

It wasn’t idle small talk waiting for the meeting to start; they were genuinely interested in something that might be affecting me.

It was like last year’s Southeast Produce Council (SEPC) theme, Produce Means Family. I’ve worked in industries where that sentence would be marketing, so I don’t say it casually.

But a dinner one night with Montreal produce and transportation members ran like a reunion, except in several cases our shared history started that very evening. Nobody wanted to leave.

Trust compounds slowly in one direction and erodes quickly in the other.

The Bad

The implications of the trade war, though, are real.

One of the buyers in the Montreal market asked their wholesale partner whether watermelon could be sourced from somewhere other than the United States, under pressure from its own consumers.

Watermelon is heavy, mostly water, and travels badly, Canada’s season is short, and for most of the calendar there is no practical substitute for American supply.

Fortunately, the request was shelved. But the pressure was strong enough to put the question on the table at all.

The Ugly

Not every request gets shelved. Canadian firms are sourcing more product from parts of Africa, South America, and Australia.

This reads on a slide as sourcing strategy and works out on the ground as the end of a trading partnership that took twenty years to build.

The supplier in Peru or the Western Cape spends this season building a record, while the shipper who lost the business spends it rebuilding an absence.

Trust compounds slowly in one direction and erodes quickly in the other. No tariff relief rebuilds it.

Finding that hurdle in September beats discovering it in February when your trucks are at the dock being loaded.

What to Do

First, stop treating the relationship as something you already have. A handshake at a booth and a text in July is a hello. Know where your partner is exposed if policy moves mid-season, and whether your performance record would survive a procurement review.

Finding that hurdle in September beats discovering it in February when your trucks are at the dock being loaded.

Trade shows are where those conversations start. This week’s SEPC Southern Innovations runs September 9 through 12 (in Nashville!), and IFPA’s Global Show follows in October. Use the room for something harder than saying hello.

Second, talk to your elected officials. Most have never stood on a dock at four in the morning and have no idea what a reassigned program costs a grower two years later.

The warmest moment of my trip was a table of Canadians asking an American what Dolly’s passing meant to his city. This week a few thousand of us will be walking around in it.

The politics will sort themselves out eventually; they always do. The account you lose this season, however, won’t be waiting for you when they do.