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Produce Show Daily Sunday, October 16, 2016 5 2 THE SHOPPING CART: BOTH ASSET AND LIABILITY The year is 1936. Sylvan N. Goldman, owner of a chain of Humpty-Dumpty Supermarkets in Oklahoma, wants to find a way to help shoppers purchase and carry more groceries per visit. With the help of Fred Young, a handyman at one of his stores, he develops a prototype for the first ever shopping cart. Since 1936, a wide variety of carts have been devel- oped with the same original goal: to make shopping easier and more conven- ient. While useful to the customer, shop- ping carts are a liability to the grocer and retailer for three main reasons: shopping carts are expensive to purchase and main- tain, retrieving carts is labor intensive and physically demanding with a risk of employee injury and shopping cart retrieval is hazardous to property and guests. Founded in a garage in 2009, Minneapolis-based C3 LLC is the creator of the patented line of U.S. made C3 Caster-lift Shopping Cart Safety Ropes. The C3 System was developed to make shopping cart management easier, safer and more productive. The C3 System for Complete Cart Control While not usually the top priority for most companies, shopping cart manage- ment is integral to customer service. The C3 System can offer value to any compa- ny with shopping carts in four main ways: it reduces costly wear-and-tear on non- pivoting casters (flat spots created by scrap- ing a line of casters lat- erally while maneuver- ing them); it increases productivity thanks to reduced fatigue and the fact that more carts can safely be retrieved per trip; it reduces the likelihood that an employee will sustain a strain-induced injury from maneuvering a line of carts; and it reduces company costs related to run- away shopping carts. With retail price of $33.00 for the C3 ST, the C3 Safety Rope is a cost effective solution for any store with shopping carts. Made in the U.S.A., it works well on a wide variety of shopping carts – small and large, metal and plastic, tradi- tional and caster-lift shopping carts. Caster-lift shopping carts are designed such that the rear casters lift off the ground when nested behind anoth- er caster-lift cart. They were designed to reduce costly flat spots on the rear wheels that don't pivot. The unintended conse- quence is that a line of caster-lift carts has the tendency to drift sideways when nested together, especially on sloped surfaces. The C3 Safety Rope works well on caster-lift shopping carts because of it's secure, "hands free" functionality. Very little tightening of the C3 Safety Rope is required with caster-lift shopping carts. With the C3 Safety Rope attached, it is usually best to push a line of caster-lift carts in backwards, or from the side. Visit www.c3llc.com to order or write to info@c3llc.com for more information. THE MOBILE ADVANTAGE IN THE WAREHOUSE Among the many challenges a distribu- tor or warehouse owner faces is manag- ing fresh produce quickly and efficient- ly. When your produce arrives at the warehouse, it tends to sit on the dock until you are able to process it, leading to possible quality control issues. The goal is to get the produce processed and moved to the optimal environment as quickly as possible. Warehouse management systems have helped with this in the past. However, they have also created double work that involves re-keying the infor- mation captured when the produce was received into the system in the back office by someone else. This step requires more clerical staff and also has the potential of error as information is keyed incorrectly. The rise of inexpensive mobile tech- nology is an advantage for produce ware- houses. Mobile technology enables you to automate and expedite many of the typical processes that occur in a ware- house, such as checking in a truck and capturing product-sensitive data for qual- ity control and weights. It also improves the management of temperature-con- trolled inventory, which has the potential to spoil while sitting on a warmer dock, waiting to be put away in the warehouse. From an administra- tive perspective, capturing critical data on a mobile device increases the effi- ciencies in the warehouse by reducing data errors and labor redundancies. Realizing this need, many software vendors are now building apps that run on mobile devices to streamline many warehouse functions and activities, including: Receivers: Streamline the receiving processes by assigning trucks to dock doors in real-time, activating order status and capturing critical information, including inbound weights, the truck's seal number and temperature. Operators: Check-in new inventory immediately, because there is no lag waiting for critical information to be entered. Management: Track inbound and view incoming receipts to the warehouse as well as conducting a final review to close out the inbound orders. "With the availability of low-cost tablet devices, warehouse owners can take advantage of mobile technology to expedite the effort needed to manage incoming inventory. This creates a ripple effect on the speed of others in the ware- house, such as the operators and the pick- ers, who are now able to start their tasks earlier," said Joe Bellini, Chief Executive Officer, AFS Technologies. Learn about the new mobile tablet ver- sion of AFS Warehouse Management System at www.afsi.com/wmsmobile. CHOCOLATE + HERBS = DELICIOUS Eating healthy doesn't mean you have to give up chocolate. Good Health Cocoa uses non-GMO 72 percent couverture chocolate and add herbs, berries and nuts to create delicious chocolate with health benefits. Many people don't like to eat 72 per- cent chocolate because of the bitter taste. The company brings the perfect balance between the chocolate and berries to tem- per the bitterness, so even people who do not like 72 percent chocolate love it. Good Health Cocoa is creating its own category of chocolates. There are five varieties to choose from: Super Antioxidant, Lasting Energy, Digestion, Heart and Passion. In its Super Antioxidant, the compa- ny incorporates tart cherries, cocoa nibs and acai berry to the chocolate to create a flavor that helps support the body's defense system. The Lasting Energy contains real blueberries, goji berries and ginseng to help support energy and stamina. This will not make you nervous like drinking coffee and energy drinks, but will keep you energized for hours. The Digestion variety is designed for people with weak digestive systems. The company adds coconut and almonds, along with ginkgo biloba to help support the digestive system. Doctors have recommended dark chocolate for years, so the company took this knowl- edge and added Hawthorn to its Heart chocolate to create a product that helps to support the cardiovascular system. Guys, do you have a stash of little blue pills? You should try Passion. The com- pany uses orange, ginger, maca and passion flower which are bene- ficial for both men and women. Don't take it late at night though, or you will stay up. Eat it during the day for a couple of days and men, you will have a smile on your face for sure. The chocolates are available in bite- size squares in colorful gable boxes or bars in a point-of-purchase display. All of the ingredients are non-GMO, making this the perfect product for the natural and specialty food chan- nels. If you are passing through Denver, tour the 15,000 square- foot chocolate factory. You are sure to love it! Now you can enjoy your chocolate and the health benefits it provides! For further information, go online to www.goodhealthcocoa.com and www .centennialbrands.com, or call 303.708.0300. Contact Sharon Adams, President, Centennial Brands at 303.909.3107 and sharona@centennial brands.com or Patti Shepard, Vice President, Centennial Brands at 303.708.0300 and pattis@centennial brands.com. PACKAGE 'OUTSIDE OF THE BOX' By Emily Miller, Marketing Manager, Custom Paper Tubes Since 1964, Custom Paper Tubes has grown by focusing on solving customers' custom retail packaging needs. Custom Paper Tubes manufactures customized, unique, eco-friendly paper tube packag- ing in sizes, styles and quantities that large commodity houses won't handle, including packaging for cosmetic, food grade and industrial products. Custom Paper Tubes is certified as a women's business enterprise through the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). By including women-owned businesses among their vendors, corporations and government agencies demonstrate their commitment to fostering diversity and the continued development of their supplier/vendor diversity programs. Specialty packaging materials can make the difference in a customer select- ing your product over the competition. We are committed to producing sustain- able, Earth-friendly packaging for cus- tomers by using recycled fibers (up to 95 percent post-consumer) and soy-based inks in our container production. We have a variety of packaging enclosure options available. All of our packaging is made in the U.S.A., in our Cleveland, Ohio facility. If you're looking to redesign your current packaging, or are interested in custom, eco-friendly packaging for a new product launch, we've got you cov- ered. Custom Paper Tubes is dedicated to its excellent track record of service, quality and support levels to its cus- tomers, partners and potential future relationships. For more information, call 800.343.8823 or visit www.custompapertubes.com.