Page 191 - Roduce Editorials News Today

The 2022 Canadian Produce Marketing Association Convention and Trade Show was a resounding success with over 3,600 registrants representing the entire produce supply chain. Exhibitors from over 270 companies accounted for 53,500 square feet of booth space on the trade show floor. Among those were 131 international exhibitors, 144 Canadian exhibitors (including 44 exhibitors from Quebec), and 77 first-time exhibitors. The 2022 New Product Showcase included 69 products from 49 different companies.

Heading into the 2022 version of Viva Fresh, the Texas International Produce Association is perhaps stronger than it has ever been in its close to 80-year history.

Two longtime Southern California produce and floral veterans — Bill Brooks of Westlake Produce Co. and Rene van Rems of Rene Van Rems International — were awarded the prestigious annual achievement awards for their respective industries by the Fresh Produce & Floral Council at its annual FPFC Expo on April 6.

Fruit Royale Inc. specializes in premium table grapes from across the globe. Seasonally, April represents a shift away from imports out of Peru and Chile. As those operations wind down the ramp-up of Fruit Royale’s season out of Mexico begins.

Wakefern Food Corp. announced a pilot with Simbe to deploy the retail technology company’s business intelligence solution, Tally, at stores throughout its trading area. Tally autonomously roams store aisles up to three times per day, leveraging computer vision technology to collect highly accurate shelf data that ensures products are in-stock, in the correct location, and accurately priced on the sales floor.

The Fresh Produce & Floral Council held its annual FPFC Expo on April 6. This year’s show featured 125 booths with almost 1,000 attendees, which included more than 400 retailers from produce vice presidents to buyers to merchandising executives to front-line personnel from the retail produce community. Supermarket representatives roamed the aisles bringing a sense of normalcy to this in-person show, which is the longest-running regional produce and floral show in the country.

What started off as a 60-hectare project of table grapes in 1991 has turned into one of the largest agricultural companies in all of Mexico. With more than 11 different farms and over 10,000 hectares of growing land throughout Sonora, in addition to new projects in Jalisco and Baja, Mexico, Grupo Alta is celebrating 30 years of business, marking a major milestone for the grower.

The Mexican Table Grapes Growers Association (AALPUM) recently held a live video conference to report that more than 25 million boxes of table grapes will be available for export from the state of Sinaloa in Mexico during the 2022 season.

Are consumers trending back toward in-person grocery shopping?  Perhaps. One thing is for sure, online eGrocery sales were down 6 percent for the month of March, according to the most recent Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey.

With a record table grape crop expected from Mexico this spring, shippers are counting on big promotional support from retailers to move the crop at a decent f.o.b. price. “The key this year is we need support from retail,” said Carlos Bon, vice president of sales for Divine Flavor, based in Nogales, AZ. “The pricing will be aggressive.”