CAMARILLO, CA - Houweling’s Tomatoes celebrated the Memorial Day Weekend with recognition from the fifth annual Governor’s Utah Energy Development Summit, having been named as one of four recipients of the Excellence in Energy Award.
“It is incredibly rewarding to be recognized as a leader and innovator for our Mona, UT, greenhouse farm,” Casey Houweling, CEO of Houweling’s, said, according to a press release. “The heat and CO2 capture technology cements the project as a crown jewel of sustainable agriculture, while opening up possibilities in a myriad of industries.”
The facility, Houweling’s Currant Creek Heat and CO2 Recovery Project at the Mona, UT, greenhouse farm, took nearly three years of vision, planning, and hard work to realize the company’s efforts for sustainable ag.
Houweling was in Salt Lake City to accept the award from Utah Governor Gary Herbert and Utah Energy Advisor Laura Nelson for the project that was selected from a crowded field of nominations. The plethora of choices, the company said, represented the exciting range of energy work underway in Utah today.
“Leadership in the energy industry is vital to ensuring that Utah has a bright future,” said Governor Herbert in a news release. “These companies are on the forefront of community impacts, environmental awareness, innovation and collaboration which are critically important efforts in our goal to power our state through responsible development.”
As we have reported previously, the 28 acre facility patented Ultra Clima semi-closed greenhouse design optimizes conditions effectively and efficiently, with close proximity to a natural gas power plant allowing Houweling’s to capitalize on the supply of traditionally wasted heat and CO2 available in the area.
Congratulations to Houweling’s on this state-level recognition.
SALISBURY, NC - Food Lion Co-Founder Ralph Ketner passed away at 95 years of age this past Sunday, leaving behind him a legacy of building the now 1,100 store Food Lion chain.
Starting in 1957, Ketner opened his first Food Town grocery store in Salisbury, N.C., cold-calling people right out of the phone book and asking for as small as $50 or $100 investments with the help of his brother, Brown Ketner, and Wilson Smith. The 125 people who gave the team their investment ended up with about $1 million, according to Food Lion.
"He had a profound and lasting impact on the entire grocery industry and he has left a tremendous legacy not only at Food Lion, but through his philanthropy and kindness in the Salisbury community as a whole,” the company shared in a statement. “Forever a welcome and vital part of our family, even at 95 years old, Mr. Ketner still attended several Food Lion events. Our associates adored and respected him and we will miss him dearly.”
Ketner was an integral part of the idea, “lowest food prices in North Carolina” or “LFPINC.” According to the Charlotte Observer, sales skyrocketed following the plan's implementation, from $5 million to $7.2 billion in 25 years.
While Ketner retired from the grocery chain in the early 1990s, he has served as both a member of the board of trustees and an adjunct professor of the Ketner School of Business at Catawba College.
The Charlotte Observer estimates that Ketner has donated 35 percent of his net worth to various charities over the years, donating $1 million in 2011 to help pay for an upgrade at a Queens University of Charlotte auditorium that bears his name. His philanthropy also benefited the Levine Center, a health and wellness center on the Queens campus.
The Salisbury Post reports that services will be held on Sunday, June 5, 2:30 p.m., at Keppel Auditorium on the Catawba College campus.
The AndNowUKnow team would like to extend our deepest condolences to Ketner’s family, friends, and those affected by this loss.
FIREBAUGH, CA - With plans to further its reach in product offerings, California-based Del Bosque Farms has enlisted Veg-Fresh Farms to market its organic melon program. President Joe Del Bosque took the time to tell me more about the past and future of the company, and how Veg-Fresh can help in that future.
“With Veg-Fresh I think we’re going to be able to expand our program and get into other products that we haven’t been able to do up until now,” Joe shares with me.
Growing up watching his father grow cantaloupes, Joe started his own farm back in 1985, and began growing organic melons in 2004.
Currently the company’s organic melon program offers:
- Cantaloupes
- Mix melons
- Mini watermelons
Marketed this year by Veg-Fresh, Joe tells me he is very excited about the company’s organic program.
“They have a lot of reach in the market, a lot of connections, and are also very progressive in looking into all the markets that are available out there for organic melons,” Joe says of Veg-Fresh’s capabilities.
Currently Del Bosque Farms grows in the Fresno and Merced counties of California, with the season running from approximately the end of June through the end of September.
To see my full interview with Joe, watch the short video above.
FRESNO, CA - It has been a sweet harvest this year for Crown Jewels’ grape program out of Sonora Mexico where the company is currently harvesting across four different districts. With an abundance of grapes coming from Guaymas, Pesqueria, La Costa and Caborca, the company’s program should bring retail partners consistent grape supply through the end of June, weather permitting.
Crown Jewels’ newest development this season, is the addition of grapes out of Guaymas, which are displaying plenty of promise for future growth especially with the newer varieties, Partner Atomic Torosian, tells me. The industry veteran took a few minutes to share the latest updates with me on the season, and what we can anticipate as we move toward California’s grape deal.
“We are currently harvesting Flames, Sugraones, Black Seedless and Red Globes. We have finished harvesting Perlettes for the season and have some new varieties that are in the ground for next year,” Atomic, tells me. “The way this current 2016 season is moving along, we will be winding down our production by June 22-23rd and hopefully finish shipping by July 4th out of Mexico. Our Arvin deal should start up around June 23-24th, so we should not have too big of an overlap.”
As for the status of the current crop, Atomic notes that the quality has been very good on most varieties, but the production has been down from last season on Perletttes, Sugraones, and Black Seedless. The Flame crop seems to be close to normal in most areas.
With California quickly approaching Atomic tells me that he believes that the entire production from California will be up this year and for the next several years, “So we could be seeing an increase for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is the new varieties produce more volume per acre, and there has been a removal of some large crimson blocks that will make way for a gradual increases each season.”
Crown Jewels will continue packing its Mexican grapes under its Crown Jewels, Sonora Queen, Z Farms, Chuyita and several other labels.
As we look ahead to the summer months, Crown Jewels will also be kicking off its California melon deal beginning with its growing region on the West side of Fresno, California, around the 4-5 of July.
“The season should get under way off the ‘Golden Westside’ around July 4th give or take a day or two,” Atomic says. “Our season for Cantaloupes and Honeydews will run from July 4th to about October 12-14th. We will be packing all of our fruit in the Crown Jewels label and packing primarily 'Western' type varieties of cantaloupes with heavy-netting and a full slip, as well as good sugar and taste with that famous cantaloupe fragrance that you can sense from across the produce aisle,” Atomic notes. “These are the varieties of cantaloupes our retail customers are looking for on a consistent basis.”
Some of the newer varieties taste like another melon variety all together, he shares, and have very little of that ripe “Athena type” cantaloupe essence.
Crown Jewels’ new 2106 summer melon program from California fits in well with the company’s year-round melon programs from Mexico in the spring and fall. These melons will be packed under the Crown Jewels label.
RUSSIA - What does the future grocery store look like?
As technology and convenience continue to evolve the way consumers shop, one Russian inventor has taken the curbside trend currently gripping retail to an entirely new level with his newly-designed Drive Market.
Just as the name entails, the consumer would do all of their grocery shopping from the seat of their vehicle if Russian Inventor Semenov Dahir Kurmanbievich’s design comes into fruition.
Every department of the store, from produce, to deli, to center, would be available on a rollodex-style shelf, according to the digital video depicting the design by Futurism.
See for yourself what the “supermarket of the future” could look like in the video below.
Not only does the design boast cutting shopping time “in-store” down to five minutes, with everything being bagged for the customer and handed to them by an attendant at the window register as they pay, but also lower employment costs.
The design reportedly requires minimal workers to re-stock inventory in real time as consumers shop, plus those at the registers.
Is this high-tech, state-of-the-art concept the beginning of the next generation of retail?
Overall Kurmanbievich’s design, which has a patent pending, resembles that of a Sonic or classic A&W, marrying nostalgia with modern technology and seemingly falling in line with where the curbside trend seems to inevitably be taking us.
But we'll see soon enough.
WATSONVILLE, CA - Flavorful, beautiful berries. Welcome to What’s in Store.
Driscoll’s spring blackberry offering is a success story based on traditional plant breeding methods with a healthy dose of persistence.
About 20 years ago, we found one of our varieties to be the best tasting blackberry variety we had ever created. Five years ago, after much hard work and tens of thousands of crosses of existing varieties having desired characteristics in the areas of flavor, yield, appearance, shelf-life and fruit size, we found ourselves in the position of having not one, but two new varieties whose flavor surpassed those before it.
Even better news, is that they are very desirable to growers from an agronomic standpoint. Meaning that they yield well, are manageable using existing production methods, and they convey some resistance to common pests and diseases in their targeted growing regions.
The bottom line is that growers realize that the economics of these varieties make good sense for them, and so they are planting a lot and asking for more!
You don’t need to make a pie out of them to make them taste good, or put them in yogurt with a spoonful of sugar. They are fantastic all by themselves. These are all positive impacts against our mission ‘To Continually Delight Consumers through Alignment with our Customers and our Berry Growers.’
As the weather warms up in Mexico and these varieties hit their ‘peak of flavor,’ act quickly and contact your sales rep for your spring blackberry program. From the last two weeks in March through the first two weeks in May, our blackberry offering in our ‘yellow triangle’ clamshells will almost exclusively be comprised of these delightful varieties.
Thank you for watching, What’s In Store.
CLEMSON, SC - The process of plant grafting could become quicker, more efficient, with less need for labor if this new technology hits the market.
Richard Hassell, Clemson Cooperative Extension's South Carolina State Vegetable Specialist, along with a science team out of the Coastal Research and Education Center at Clemson University, have created a bionic, steel-handed machine to modernize and simplify plant grafting.
“When done by hand, it's very slow and labor-intensive," Hassell told Phys Org. "The robot does it much faster than a human can do it. This reduces labor costs while at the same time enhancing healthy and robust growth because the same clean cut is made every time."
Hassell’s methods are already known in grafting practices, as he is also responsible for a method that prevents or heals regrowth that has been adopted by growers throughout the U.S. and beyond, according to the report.
"Grafting was laughed at when I first came here," Patrick Wechter, Research Plant Pathologist for the U.S. Vegetable Laboratory, said, according to the report. "People said no one will ever do it in the U.S. because it's too expensive. But Richard has persisted and become of one of the leading experts in the world on grafting."
Now, with team members Brian Ward, Mark Schaffer, Manning Rushton, and Ginny DuBose, he hopes to tackle the intensity of the grafting process, which affects several fresh produce categories.
"The reason we graft crops such as watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, and peppers is because they have poor root systems that are very susceptible to soil-born disease. And so anything in the soil that stresses their roots collapses the plants," Hassell said. "But if we graft hardier, resistant rootstocks from plants such as gourds and squash onto the shoots of the desired crop, then the fruit-producing part of the plant is able to thrive."
So what does the robot do? Well, in just seconds, the the metal “hand” grasp, slices, and pushes together the rootstock of the fruit and the gourd.
"After the graft is completed, the plant is put into a high-humidity healing chamber that encourages the graft to heal and the rootstock to store carbohydrates while also sending out new roots," Hassell said of the plant’s journey after the robot is done, detailing that it still needs a week to heal, a week to strengthen, and then is ready to plant. All to make a stronger product.
So what impact will this latest high-tech invention have on the produce industry? We can’t wait to find out.
COACHELLA, CA - This year is Prime Time's 25th anniversary, and the company wants to celebrate with you, its valued customers!
So, from now until the end of summer, the company will be giving away Prime Time limited edition commemorative pure silver coins. That’s right, giving them away!
Here’s how it works...
The company will be randomly placing bright red envelopes in a number of Prime Time produce boxes.
If you open the box and see one of these envelopes, then you’re a winner! All you have to do is fill out the form and send it in to the team, and the company will send you your Prime Time limited edition commemorative pure silver coin — and polo shirt! It’s as simple as that.
Prime Time will be announcing the winners on the company's website and on Facebook on a regular basis, so keep watching!
And good luck – from AndNowUKnow and all your friends at Prime Time!
ALGECIRAS, ES - It seems that the criminal underside will never tire of attempting to circumvent the law in order to make illicit money, as Spanish authorities can recently attest.
Customs agents in the Port of Algeciras recently uncovered 171 kgs (roughly 377 pounds) of cocaine stuffed into a shipment of bananas. However, adding to the oddity of the fruit bust, was that the drugs were concealed inside plastic bananas, designed to look like an ordinary fruit shipment.
"During a check of a consignment in Port of Algeciras on April 28th, a pallet marked with a red 'X' was discovered by agents," said a statement from Spain’s National Police, according to The Local ES.
Interceptados en el Puerto de #Algeciras 171 kg de cocaína ocultos en bananas sintéticas procedentes de #Colombia.https://t.co/JiTvmQ19fG
— Policía Nacional (@policia) May 14, 2016
Upon expecting the pallet, authorities discovered 19 boxes filled with 88 synthetic bananas, which were in turn stuffed with €17 million (about $19 million) worth of cocaine.
Police and customs agents detected the drugs after performing a long investigation into criminal gangs smuggling South American drugs into Europe. The banana-masked cocaine was imported from Turbo, Colombia, and was meant to end its journey at a fruit packing company in Huelva, Spain.
Spanish authorities said that in 2015 alone, they had seized 22 tons of cocaine, a 43 percent increase on the previous year, and stated that Spain was the main entry point for smugglers to use for access to Europe.
AndNowUKnow will continue to report as shipments of fruit and vegetables find a surprising starring role in the industry.
KINGSVILLE, ON- Mucci Farms’ latest proprietary product offers its own eating experience, with a capital “X.”
The company’s new Tomato-X is described as an exotic tomato bursting with extreme flavor, standing on its own as a strong snacking tomato with a crisp bite followed by a fresh burst of flavor.
“Our whole team from grower/sales and marketing agreed the features of this tomato are incredibly unique from its appearance, its flavour profile, to even going a step further by saying it presents an ‘experience,’” Emily Murracas, Mucci’s Marketing Manager, tells me. “It possesses somewhat of an “X – factor” and the consumers need to be intrigued by its name, enticed on the shelf, and educated when in hand.”
The sleek packaging achieves this, capturing the eye with a cool X and conveying all the shopper needs to know. The transparent Top Seal still leaves room to allow the intriguingly red-orange tomato speak for itself, with another unique packaging option.
“We also created a more unique option for a cardboard band with laser cut-outs and/or clear film band to maximize the real-estate but still offer good product visibility, as well as a tamper evident seal,” Emily explains.
Overall, Mucci is confident that the look portrays the unique, premium feel of the Tomato-X itself, while the white and blue colors portray a healthy, fitness-like vibe.
You can see this new product at next month's United Fresh Produce Expo, where it will be featured in the Product Showcase.
Mucci also has three products that have been named finalists for the show in the folowing three categories:
- Best New Package – CutecumbersTM Re-seal Flow-wrap Tray
- Best New Fruit – Smuccies Sweet Strawberry
- Best New Vegetable – Naked Leaf Living Lettuce & Herbs
Keep checking in as we continue to follow out-of-the-box promotions for equally out-of-the-box products rocking the industry.