Abstract
In fulfillment of the requirements for my Master of Agriculture degree, I did a summer internship at Frieda's, Inc. in Los Alamitos, California. Frieda's is an importer and distributor of specialty produce. I assisted with several projects in the Marketing Department. Frieda's, Inc. and Primuslabs.com, a third party food safety organization, formed a partnership to enable Frieda's suppliers to become certified in food safety using an innovative online Document Development System. My role in the project was to communicate with the growers and to encourage and support their participation in the project. The target goal was get 10% of the growers to develop food safety manuals. Eleven percent developed manuals, and 15% registered but did not complete the manuals. This 15% percent represents a target group for renewed communication and support efforts. Though I was hired to work on the grower certification project, my internship experience expanded to encompass four main projects and several miscellaneous ones. I used Frieda's 1998 sales report to estimate their required label inventory. I participated in the redesigning of the Frieda's website by developing copy and recipe information for each product. l developed an in-house manual for use with the Wal-Mart Retail Link inventory management system. In addition, I developed promotables, packed produce in the warehouse, and visited the Los Angeles produce market. I consider all of the projects I worked on to have been successful. This paper will attempt to explain in detail each of the projects I on which I worked and how each contributed to my overall experience.
Reeves, Melissa (2000). A fruitful experience at Frieda's, Inc.. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -2000 -THESIS -R43.