Building a successful berry program begins with highly focused attention to detail. For Well-Pict Berries, this means marketing superior fruit. “Well-Pict’s proprietary varieties are bred the old-fashioned way, through years of careful cross-pollination, to produce the best quality, most flavorful, good-looking berries, and they’re only available from Well-Pict,” said Jim Grabowski, director of marketing.

Grabowski said the company’s customers can be assured of consistent supplies of quality berries.

New Zealand pipfruit producers are anticipating slight decreases in apple and pear volumes exported this season. “Export apple volumes for the 2015 season were estimated to be around 300,000 tons,” said Alan Pollard, chief executive officer of Pipfruit New Zealand. Reductions in pear volumes are expected to follow a similar tend.

Have you ever gone into a retail store with the purpose of buying only one or two specific items, but made additional purchases of other items? What prompted you to buy more than you intended?

Well-Pict’s summer promotion, “Where Will Your Berries Take You?” is designed to drive consumer purchase as well as offering consumers the chance to win their way to a concert of their choice.

 In an effort to educate consumers on how greenhouse produce is grown, NatureFresh Farms recently unveiled its custom designed mobile Greenhouse Education Center to hundreds of customers at Loblaw Cos.-owned ‘ZEHRS’ store in Cambridge, ON.

It was the earliest start of new potatoes from Kern County, CA, in memory, according to longtime sales representative and observer Tom Franconi of Mazzei-Franconi Co. LLC in Edison, CA.

“Typically, we would start around May 1,” he said, “but this year there were Kern County potatoes on the market on April 21.”