American Food And Ag Exporter is an unusual magazine. Now in its fifth year of publication, American Food And Ag Exporter is unabashedly promotional. It tells the food and ag buyers of the world all about the great bounty available from America.
At the same time, the magazine is now under new ownership, and with that ownership comes a wealth of experience and resources in food exporting and in publishing, all of which are being employed to serve your needs.
That picture by the side of the page is me, James E. Prevor, and I’m the president of American Food And Ag Exporter. I also serve as Editor-in-Chief of the magazine.
Many of you will recognize my name. My family, based in New York, has been prominent in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry for many generations. By the 1970s, my family was the largest independent exporter of American produce. In addition to fruits and vegetables, we exported a variety of food items, from frozen foods to dairy products, frozen eviscerated poultry, meat, eggs, and much more.
I had the privilege of working in my family’s business, among other roles serving as export director for many years. So you should know that the people behind this magazine aren’t simply passive observers. I’ve been in the trenches trying to satisfy people just like you, with dozens of American food and agricultural products.
Of course, some of you may recognize me and some of the other names on this masthead from another source. Some eight years ago, I established a company that launched produce business magazine, a trade publication specializing in the fruit, vegetable, and floral industries. produce business has won wide respect for its incisive view into the world of produce marketing. We will apply the same top quality journalistic techniques to American Food And Ag Exporter that have won Produce Business more than 50 major awards in the past eight years.
Doing all this will be a top-notch staff of journalists and graphics specialists. The magazine has been completely redesigned to make it easier to read and more useful to you, the reader. I’m especially pleased to introduce to you my friend and long time business associate, Ken Whitacre, who has agreed to serve as publisher of American Food And Ag Exporter magazine. Ken also is the publisher of produce business magazine and brings a wealth of agricultural and publishing knowledge to his post. Born in the green state of Kentucky, he is degreed from Cornell University’s famed School of Agriculture and Life Sciences. We’re very lucky to have him aboard.
In a sense, this magazine has simple goals. We will use the pages to introduce you to key people in American food and agricultural exporting. We will keep you posted on what products are hot and what products are not. We’ll also give you information on basic products that are exported year in and year out. We’ll let you know which companies are doing a lot of food exporting. And we’ll give you the information you need to buy the products better, to transport them effectively and help you sell the products in your own country.
In a greater sense, this magazine has larger and more lofty ambitions. As a boy growing up, I saw my father serving as a sort of business guide to America for his clients from around the world. Even with products he didn’t personally sell, he would try to help his buyers make the contacts and acquire the information they needed to do business effectively in America.
In a manner of speaking, that’s what we are going to do with this magazine. We want to serve as an experienced, knowledgeable business confidant that you can turn to when you need information on doing business in America. Who to talk to? Where to go? How to set it up? These are questions this magazine will answer over the years.
We’re going to bring together U.S. exporters and non-U.S. importers. The fine advertisers who support this magazine are sending you a message: “We take your business seriously; we want to deal with you and your country.” We hope the pages of American Food And Ag Exporter will be the initiating place for a dialogue and business relations between our advertisers and you, our readers.
We hope to help you cut down on some of the expensive business trips to America that you have often felt compelled to make in the past. By working together, we can offer the information you need without burdening you with long exploratory trips. We still hope, of course, that you’ll visit America, and in the issues to come we’ll be revealing some services we’ve set up to help you do that. In the meantime, we can help you do a lot of the basic building-block work via phone, fax and mail.
Now accomplishing all this in the magazine is a big job. But we also know that when you need help you can’t wait for another issue. We don’t want you missing out on a single business opportunity. So, please view us as a year-round resource. If you need a contact, have a question, want some help, we’re your resource, your business partner far beyond the pages of this magazine. Send us a letter, send us a fax; we’ll work very hard to help you do business better when it comes to buying American food and agricultural products.
I travel around the world giving speeches and workshops. I hope we’ll meet in person some day, but in the meantime, I hope you’ll look on this magazine as a letter from a knowledgeable friend in America, keeping you informed and tantalizing you with the unbounded business opportunities that await for those doing business in America