Summary: Generic promotion refers to the promotion of products without any reference to a particular brand name. Through legislated programs, the federal government has been involved with the generic promotion of agricultural commodities, such as beef and milk, for more than 50 years. While promotion programs exist for individual fresh fruits and vegetables, no single program exists to collectively promote all fruits and vegetables. Such a program, which would supplement existing individual commodity programs, would pool funds from the individual commodity producers to increase consumer demand for fruits and vegetables generally. To better understand the issue and potential producer support for a promotion program for all fresh fruits and vegetables, GAO sought the views of several large producers and producer associations. Generally, they object to a generic promotion effort for all fresh fruits and vegetables, although they are interested in some aspects of such a program. All of those surveyed indicated that a producer-financed generic promotion program would be unacceptable to them because its benefits would not be worth the fees that commodity producers would have to pay to fund the program.
