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Thursday, March 4, 2021
NORTH AMERICA

Our team

Marieke Hemmes
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Annika Durinck
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Astrid van den Broek
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Sander Bruins Slot
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Job Offers

Grower, Vine Crops - Richmond (KY) USA

Cultivation/Propagation Manager Young Plants - Australia

Assistant Head Grower - Mason City (Iowa) USA

Global Category Director for Cherries - Chile, North America, Australia or New Zealand

Head of Sales - LA (California) USA

Head of Agronomy: Research & Development - Berlin, Germany

Africa Fruit Export Sales Manager - South Africa

Grower - Philippines

Assistant technical manager

Food Safety and Quality Director - South Bend (IN) USA

US: 2021 organic apple and pear import program kicks off

This year Bridges Produce celebrates 15 years of importing organic apples and pears from South America. “We have grown our Southern Hemisphere apple and pear program steadily…

Job Offers:

Virtual town hall

How PMA helps increase diversity and inclusion in the produce industry

The discussion at this week’s PMA virtual town hall centered around diversity and inclusion, and the steps that PMA has taken to support members in increasing the diversity…

Growing regions and varieties of mangoes shifting

Volumes and varieties of mango supplies are beginning a transition from Peru to Mexico. “Peru is shipping Kent mangoes and arrivals from Peru are expected until the second…

Remembering the “Mango King”

RCF Distributors, LLC is saddened to report the sudden loss of our dear friend, colleague and paramount sales agent, Alan Alvarez, who passed away on Saturday, January 30th,…

Near-harvest technology now available for US blueberry growers

For years, apple, pear, and cherry growers across the U.S. and globe have appreciated the benefits of near-harvest Harvista™ 1.3 SC technology, which allows…

USDA seeks nominees for the Hass Avocado Board

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking eight nominees for the Hass Avocado Board. Seats open for nominees are two producer and two importer seats for…

Across global product offering

Tropical grower embraces shelf-life extending technology

Hazel Technologies Inc., a USDA-funded company providing new technologies to extend the shelf life of produce and fight food waste, and AMR Agro, a tropical grower in the…

Lot of food exports are getting stuck:

Pandemic ‘doom shopping’ clogs up US ports

Shipping companies are making it more difficult and costly to ship American food exports. Now, industry groups want federal regulators to clamp down on…

University of Alberta's School of Public Health study:

'Eating fruits and vegetables reduces carcinogenic effects of red and processed meats'

Recent research led by Katerina Maximova, an adjunct professor in the University of Alberta's School of Public Health and member of the Cancer Research…

New Zealand expects largest ever kiwifruit harvest

New Zealand’s 2021 kiwifruit harvest has kicked off with the first commercial crop being picked this morning in Gisborne and more kiwifruit to be picked across New Zealand…

Global Focus Bananas

Robert Adams, President of One Banana Co.:

“From March 2020 to date, we have donated 1,248,900 bananas”

Banana company One Bananas has their own sustainable farms in Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru. Robert Adams, President of One Banana Co. says: “Late last year, eastern Guatemala…

Special Australia / New Zealand

MAF RODA

Chris Bray - MAF RODA NZ

"Ease of integration and design means customers only need to deal with one company"

More and more companies are investing in robotics and automated packhouse machinery, this may be to tackle labour shortages or cope with growing production volumes. MAF RODA…

Retail

Dreamstime

Sale-leaseback deal involving 13 grocery stores for Harps Food Stores

Publix tallied big sales and earnings gains

Walmart sweetens pay for most U.S. hourly workers on the coastsMany Walmart Inc hourly workers will collect bigger paychecks on the U.S. east and west coast markets where the…

New "Anytime Is Avotime” ad campaign launches in Canada

After the successful launch of their first television ad campaign “Anytime is Avotime” in late 2019, Avocados From Mexico is back in full force with a…

Empathy in marketing the focus of 6th annual BrandStorm

United Fresh’s sixth annual BrandStorm™ event will take place online March 9-11, 2021. The event will feature two sessions designed to facilitate dialogue…

Driscoll’s Miles and Brie Reiter discuss past, present and future of their business

In a recent interview with Food Tank, father-daughter J. Miles Reiter and Brie Reiter Smith of Driscoll’s, the world’s largest berry company, spoke about…

Ohio company satisfies PACA violations

In a complaint filed on March 16, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture alleged that Enson Group LLC, doing business as Eternal Food Service (Enson Group),…

Industry associations support bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act

Industry associations support the reintroduction of the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act, H.R. 1537. “The Farm Workforce Modernization Act…

Texas winter storm might not be harmful for Hill Country peach crops

There might finally be some good agricultural news after last month's winter storm, Uri. According to Hill Country peach growers, the freeze that hit the area…

JBT Corporation acquires label inspection/verification systems provider

JBT Corporation, a global technology solutions provider to segments of the food and beverage industry, has acquired AutoCoding Systems Ltd, a provider of…

PlayStation

Sony files patent for ‘banana’ as PS5 controller

A new PlayStation patent appears to have a literal banana as a PS5 controller. GamesIndustry.biz has noted that Sony has recently filed a patent for this new controller…

Cbi.eu

Exotic fruit companies from Panama and Nicaragua ready for a new challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic creates challenges for companies that want to export high-quality fruit. At the same time, it has made the healthy living trend more important to…

A couple of Brazilian lawyers quit their jobs in Belo Horizonte to grow shiitake in Nova Lima

They are both lawyers. She had a company in Belo Horizonte, where she worked with her mother. He also worked in the state capital of Minas Gerais; in a large law firm. Gisele…

Agricola Famosa and Citri & Co join forces to become a world benchmark in the fresh fruit market

The Brazilian company Agrícola Famosa, the world's largest melon and watermelon producer and exporter, and the Spanish group Citri & Co, the largest European…

Vanguard South Africa

Update on South Africa’s apple and pear crops

"South Africa’s main apple and pear production areas in the Western region had an excellent winter season with ample rain, snow and cold units," says Neil…

Limpopo hot pepper grower looks to export

In their first year of planting chillies, Waltela Maree of Zandrivier Boerdery in Vaalwater, Limpopo, says the bumper crop of hot peppers has almost taken them by surprise.…

A new name on the fruit stage: Vrugteboom

“All of the reactions we’ve had from our clients across the world have been positive, and sometimes they ask us what the name means,” says Stijn Koesen, managing director of…

Westfalia’s Mozambican litchi programme brings the sweet taste of success

In a victory for more than 200 smallholder growers, Westfalia Fruit is celebrating a bountiful 2020 litchi season in Mozambique.The returns from the 2020 bumper crop are…

Deputy Director General of FAO will be present

First Southern Hemisphere Fresh Fruit Trade Congress- "Keeping the world supplied"

With the aim of bringing the fruit industries of the Southern and Northern Hemisphere closer together and to allow better planning for the coming year, SHAFFE…

Researchers develop an AI system that allows greenhouses to operate without human intervention

This technology is a step forward for future space missionsOne of the challenges to colonize other planets and establish human settlements, starting with the…

ARRA program answers Passion demand in grape market

Innovation and dedication are the core forces behind the creation of a great table grape, according to the team behind the ARRA breeding program. “We work tirelessly towards…

Fruit Cleaning Service offers alternative for soft fruit with a quality problem

Soft berries and strawberries that are too soft or have a mould problem, a container of blueberries with a cooling problem or raspberries whose shelf life is not optimal -…

Wouter Snippe, WeGrowOrganic:

“We want to be able to supply Dutch organic onions year-round”

There's a lot of construction underway at WeGrowOrganic in the Netherlands. This company supplies products like organic onions and potatoes. It's building a new processing and…

Export of pineapples from the Philippines and Latin America expected to increase

Demand for Hainan pineapples grows as mainland China temporarily bans Taiwanese pineapples

The General Administration Customs China (GACC) announced on the 26th of February that pineapple imports from Taiwan had been temporarily halted. This prohibition went into…

Some Chinese suppliers stand out in the market

"Chinese fruit market already past the darkest hour"

The import fruit market in China suffered from an incident with imported cherries that tested positive for Covid-19. Many exporters wonder how the Chinese market will develop…

Banana growers call for urgent Government assistance

Australian banana growers who have lost up to 100 per cent of their crop to cyclonic winds are calling for urgent assistance from the Queensland and Federal Governments.In a devastating…

NZ: Moving tomatoes into next-gen tech

Waybeyond has launched a purpose-built mobile Crop Registration app for tomato growers, digitizing a time-consuming manual data process. “Those in the tomato business will be…

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