One company I worked at imported broccoli from China to their factory on the eastern side of Canada, for products intended for distribution across all of Canada

One company I worked at imported broccoli from China to their factory on the eastern side of Canada, for products intended for distribution across all of Canada, Mexico, and the US. Even with constant quality issues and recalls[1], there just weren't many other options out there. For sufficiently large orders, it's hard to secure consistent sourcing more locally. China constitutes half of the world's product, India a majority of the rest, and every other country rolls up to a very minority stake[2]. I was working on raw materials supply chain optimization, and broccoli in particular (and produce in general) was the bane of my work. I don't know much about the wider produce supply chain, but it was really unexpected when I started just how much fresh produce we imported from China, and how it wasn't even necessarily a cost-driven factor. [1] These consisted virtually entirely of supplier-side recalls that before production or shortly after, and at least during my tenure did not result in any customer-facing recalls. But our production/distribution process did account for enough capacity padding to allow for that, and an incredible amount of production waste. [2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-growing-the-most-broccoli-and-cauliflower-in-the-world.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-growing-the-mo...