Having your hometown team in the Super Bowl brings extreme levels of excitement.
The produce companies in Kansas City and Philadelphia say this leads to increased sales ahead of Super Bowl LVII in Phoenix between the Chiefs and Eagles Sunday, but also some apprehension for what Monday might bring – win or lose.
Here’s what a few of those companies have to say about the Super Bowl’s impact on their business:
John McClelland, CEO, Liberty Fruit Co., Inc., BB #:105664 Kansas City, KS:
“Having the Chiefs in the Super Bowl is awesome for the city and great for business. We provide marketing and merchandising support for in-store ads and displays that everyone gets excited about, and of course restaurants and bars are packed with fans all weekend.
I hear a lot about businesses worried about employee attendance, but fortunately the Chiefs have been in this game a handful of times recently, and we’ve learned a thing or two about navigating that part. We get customer orders early where we can and schedule our night crew so they can either get out in time for the game or watch it on the big screen at Liberty before finishing the pick. And most importantly, we bring in a spread of really good food so the guys can enjoy watching the Chiefs bring home another Lombardi!”
Emily Kohlhas, director of marketing, John Vena Inc. BB #:104221 Philadelphia:
“The whole city is wound up like a spring…you can feel the tension in the air, and the PWPM {Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market) is no exception. Things have definitely been busy this week. Luckily we haven’t had any major supply issues with avocados, which are definitely our number one concern around this time.
Labor on the other hand is absolutely going to be a challenge. We have a lot of great folks on our team and a staffing strategy in place that should maximize everyone’s ability to enjoy the game while maintaining coverage, but come Monday when business picks back up after the Sunday freeze – and absolutely come the day of the parade in the case of a win – there will be call-outs.
No way around that one. I’ve heard of some folks offering bonuses to anyone that shows up for their shift during that time period, but honestly for an occasion such as this it would have to be a hefty chunk of change to dissuade a true Philly sports fan from celebrating in a city that takes sports as seriously as we do.”
Tracie Levin, controller, M. Levin and Company, Inc. BB #:104129, Philadelphia:
“You can say ‘It’s a Philly Thing’ when it comes to all sports in our city. We’re a City of people who live and breathe sports. Philly loves all of our home teams whether it be the Eagles, the Phillies, the Sixers, the Flyers or the Union, and we like to think that the teams love us right back.
In Philly everyone’s on board to see our Birds win it big on Sunday – even the school districts in and around Philadelphia are opening 2 hours late on Monday to allow everyone time to enjoy the game Sunday night and to be able to celebrate as we all know Philly celebrates when our teams win. When our teams are doing well bars and restaurants in and around the city are booming – people are eating out, ordering in, consuming lots of food. Big games are always good for produce sales in our business, we obviously see the increase in sales of avocados amongst other fruits and vegetables that are notorious for people munching on while watching the game.
The fact that the City of Philadelphia is already planning epic amounts of partying Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday should our team win leads me to our dilemma as a business owner who operates around the clock…and yes, that includes during the big game. In this industry we know produce doesn’t sleep, which leads me into saying that during big games and other celebrations we always run into the same issues including lack of staff to unload, load, create orders and run our businesses per usual.
Will phones and radios be streaming the big game as workers clock in Sunday night? You bet. Will we have many call outs Monday morning after the big game, should we win or lose? Absolutely. This is all to be expected, and hey… at least if we’re short staffed and it takes us a bit longer to get our daily business done due to the hype surrounding the game on Monday it will all be worth it if we win. When our teams win Philly is happy, we slide up the greased poles – alternatively when we lose, we’re angry, but we still may go up those poles anyway just because! In these times we will take all the happy we can get – business will go on, as it always does…and the day after (or two days after) the big game, we’ll all go back to work….while chanting E-A-G-L-E-S during every opportunity that we can. Go Birds!! “
