It’s generally normal for consumers to tighten up their spending belts after the Christmas holiday. That’s because they will need to pay for all the gifts they purchased, which comes at a price — cutbacks on spending and food is usually where they start shaving.

However, with the consumer post-holiday dip in spending, there will still be opportunities to capture produce sales. Looking at the markets, it is hopeful that the basic higher-volume items will become more available with some attractive markets in January and February.

Promotion possibilities:

US Foods Holding Corp. and its associates donated more than $12 million in food, supplies and monetary contributions to address hunger-relief efforts across the country throughout 2023, the equivalent of approximately 5 million meals or approximately 225 truckloads of product, through its corporate hunger-relief campaigns.

Salix Fruits, a leading importer and exporter of fresh fruits based in Philadelphia, continues to strengthen its ties with producers in Morocco to ensure quality and excellence in its products.

With more than 25 years of produce industry experience under his belt, Patrick Mills has joined the Idaho Potato Commission as retail promotion director West/Canada following the retirement of Kent Beesley.

Lidl US released its first Corporate Social Responsibility Report, highlighting the company’s environmental and social impact initiatives, and progress over the last two years. The advancements align with the company’s efforts to provide customers and communities with high-quality products at affordable prices while acting responsibly.

IPR Fresh recently celebrated its 20th year in business, and it has its eye trained on further growth with a focus on Bell peppers.

“We now have Bell peppers, watermelon and European cukes, and sweet corn will be starting in late November,” Jose Luis Obregon, president of IPR Fresh, told The Produce News in early November. “We had a bit of a delay on peppers from Sinaloa due to the hurricane in October, but only about 10 days. By early December, we should be really cranking.”