Pear Bureau Northwest has promoted Bob Catinella to director of merchandising.   

Cardenas Markets, a leading grocery retailer focused on serving the Hispanic community, has been acquired by Apollo Global Management. Upon completion of the transaction, Apollo will combine Tony’s Fresh Market, a Chicago-based portfolio company, with Cardenas Markets, which operates across California, Nevada and Arizona, to create a leading Hispanic- and ethnic-focused grocer. Both companies will continue to operate under their respective brands and local leadership, while benefiting from greater scale, complementary capabilities and an expanded operating footprint.

Green Giant announced new consumer survey results that found broccoli remains America's favorite vegetable for 2022. The Green Giant brand polled over 5,000 Americans for its annual Favorite Veggie open-ended survey to determine consumers' favorite vegetables in time for National Eat Your Vegetables Day (June 17).

Key survey findings include:

The 2022 season for Summer Citrus from South Africa kicks off this week with the arrival of its first conventional vessel to the U.S.

The vessel will arrive at PhilaPort, the port of Philadelphia, and contains 3,900 pallets of clementines and Navel oranges. Based on market demand, easy peelers are now the largest portion of SCSA’s product offering accounting for almost 50 percent of planned shipments this season.

As one of the largest shippers of blueberries on the East Coast, Dandrea Produce, based in Vineland, NJ, executes a seamless program throughout the calendar year.  “New Jersey blueberries play a huge role in our seamless program,” said Peter Dandrea, director of sales. “Having consistent supply is crucial for our customers and we foresee this year the New Jersey crop may be even more important.”

Every produce director knows that melons will easily speed up sales in a hurry. A new crop of watermelons is starting to strengthen the supply as Florida, Georgia, Texas and California production is entering the summer scene. Cantaloupes and honeydews are seeing production sweeten up sales volume as a new crop is shipping out of California.