“We have a variety of in-store demos scheduled with major retailers throughout North America during the holiday season,” said Chris Veillon, director of marketing for Mastronardi Produce, headquartered in Leamington, ON. “The on-site demos are a huge hit in providing new options to customers who have not tasted our products before.”

Mr. Veillon added that retailers tend to “dress up” their produce departments with holiday decorations to add a festive touch to the product demos. The demos typically include coupons for the company’s “Sunset” brand products.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said its estimate of the 2012-13 Florida citrus crop has decreased more than 5 percent to 146 million boxes. The majority of the decrease will occur in early-mid varieties, which declined 7 million boxes to 67 million from the USDA's initial October estimate. Valencias decreased 1 million boxes to 79 million boxes.

The USDA makes its first estimate in October of each year and revises it monthly as the crop takes shape until the end of the season in July.

When Audrey Desnoyers first joined the produce industry, she was hired to drive a bright green Volkswagen Beetle around the eastern United States as part of a team that introduced consumers to a new brand of kiwifruit. Now, after nearly 15 years spent driving sales of Oppy products, she has been named as The Oppenheimer Group's new national business development manager.

Texas is losing farmland at the rate of 200 acres a day. At the same time, the state’s agricultural population is graying. Drought is a constant worry and an omnipresent threat. Yet the Lone Star State is doing more with less, feeding a growing population and much of the rest of the country via produce grown in the state or in neighboring Mexico and distributed through a vast network that stretches from the heart of the Rio Grande Valley to Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas’s gateway to the rest of America.

With summer-like temperatures still holding on in the Sacramento area in October, the Great Big Idaho Potato Truck rolled into town for a stop at a Raley’s location. The timing of the visit was significant, as it helped the retailer gear up for the fall season, when potatoes occupy a more prominent position in its merchandising efforts.

Wish Farms, a leading grower-shipper of strawberries and year-round supplier of blueberries, attributes some of this year's growing decisions to consumer feedback.