More than 1,800 attendees are expected to convene in Monterey, CA, July 24-26 to network and discuss emerging trends facing the fresh produce and foodservice industries. The PMA Foodservice Conference, now in its 34rd year, is completely focused on fresh produce in foodservice.

RIDGE SPRING, SC — More than 250 local dignitaries and VIPs as well as peach growers and suppliers attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new $6.5 million renovation and new packingline for Titan Farms here on May 28.

HLB Specialties, a leading North American papaya importer based in Pompano Beach, FL, announced that its main supplier of Golden papayas, Caliman Agrícola, has been awarded a Fairtrade certificate by FLOCERT.

Caliman is one the world’s largest papaya growers and with more than 35 years of experience, it has set many standards for the papaya industry, including being the oldest Brazilian papaya grower with the Fairtrade certificate.

With 117.6 million pounds of avocados to be consumed for Fourth of July activities, the celebration of Independence Day is expected to be the second-largest avocado-consumption event of 2015.

SWEDESBORO, NJ — Sun Valley Orchards, here, kicked off its 2015 New Jersey spring vegetable deal with a strong volume of good-quality asparagus. The crop started about a week later than normal due to very cold weather over the winter and early spring, but “we’ve had some heat the last few weeks, which brought the asparagus on pretty quickly,” Joe Marino told The Produce News Wednesday, May 13. “The asparagus has been pretty good so far.”

Peppadew USA, the U.S. arm of the South Africa-based developer of a specialty pepper known as Peppadew, is seeing an upward trend in the local production of Goldew, a sweet, tangy version of the pepper.

Pierre Crawley, managing director of Peppadew USA, based in Morganville, NJ, grows Goldew in the Garden State and has enlisted F&S Produce Co. in Rosenhayn, NJ, as a growing and distribution partner to help ramp up volume and sales.