If there’s one month to make sweet potatoes your Valentine, it’s February. Country Sweet Produce’s Bako Sweet is celebrating American Heart Month, National Sweet Potato Month, Valentine’s Day and Cook a Sweet Potato Day this month with several marketing efforts to drive sales during this season. 

North Bay Produce, a Traverse City, MI-based cooperative of growers, is offering a versatile varietal mix and large sizes in its 2023 portfolio of Michigan apples. Ken Korson, sales and apple category manager at North Bay, raved about this year’s crop. “It is possibly the largest crop Michigan has ever had,” he said. 

Korson noted an ideal pre-harvest climate positioned Michigan apples for this year’s historic run. “The spring and summer weather came with timely rains, which helped produce larger fruit sizes,” he said. 

The Global Organic Produce Expo took place Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Hollywood, FL. The event returned to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel Casino in south Florida for a second year. The theme for this year's iteration, Reaching the Conscious Consumer, aimed to inspire every aspect of the event from keynote presentations and educational sessions to networking events and the bustling exhibit hall.

Jim Matiasevich, co-founder and president of Fullerton, CA’s Veg-Land Sales Inc. and its subsidiaries, died Jan. 28 due to complication from pneumonia. He was 76.

Del Rey Avocado, with more than 50 years of experience, has been blessed to be part of the meteoric rise in popularity of avocados across the world. 

“The two things that have contributed to this success are our growers and customer base,” Patrick Lucy, the president of the Fallbrook, CA-based company said. “We do not do anything at Del Rey Avocado until we can answer a simple question: ‘Is it good for our growers?’ If the answer is yes, then most of the time it will be good for us as well.”

The National Watermelon Promotion Board and research partner Armada Corporate Intelligence Inc. invite all interested parties to their 2017-21 Economic Evaluation presentation, which will take place Feb. 23rd at 8 a.m. during the National Watermelon Convention at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.