MONTEREY, CA - Tanimura & Antle, a premier sponsor for the 2015 Tour de Fresh, is gearing up for the rapidly approaching 4-day ride.
The 250 mile push to benefit “Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools,” a campaign to install salad bars in schools across the country, requires each rider to raise $3,000 (the cost of a single salad bar per school). To get ready, riders and T&A employees Aaron Torres, Helena Beckett and Christa Schuck are also participating in Team Tanimura & Antle and The Wharf Marketplace’s first annual Cornhole Tournament to benefit Tour de Fresh and its mission.
“Our 1st Annual Cornhole Tournament is a fun event held at an awesome place that benefits an even greater cause,” Torres, who is also the Sales and Marketing Manager for T&A, said in a press release. “Our goal is to stick with it until salad bars are in every school cafeteria in our country.”
The tournament’s first official day was Thursday, September 3rd, according to T&A, with more than six teams participating at the event and featuring tastings from local Monterey brewery Mad Otter Ale. The second event was held at noon on Sunday, September 13th, and there is still another to go for Thursday, September 17th!
The first team winners, brothers John and Brian Louie, took home two bottles of local Monterey County wine, The Wharf Marketplace gear, and became the first qualifiers for the championship round on September 27th.
Tournament entry is $20 per participant, with all donations going to the Tour de Fresh cause.
Those who want to take an active part in this year’s goal of financing 100+ new salad bars to a variety of schools across the U.S. can still sign up for the 5 p.m. event this Thursday for a chance to be, or to see, who will be crowned champion at noon on the 27th of this month.
The Tour de Fresh rides from Hickory, NC to the 2015 Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit Convention in Atlanta, GA, a 250 mile stretch over a 4-day span. To find out more about the cause or how to help promote produce for the next generation, go to tourdefresh.com/riders.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - It looks like Target stores will be the next to partner with grocery delivery giant Instacart, giving its customers the option to get fresh produce in as little as one hour.
“Our goal is to make grocery shopping easier and more convenient,” says Jason Goldberger, President of Target.com and Mobile. “Our team is constantly listening to guests’ needs and looking for new ways to help them shop Target wherever, whenever and however they want. Instacart is a leading player in this space and we look forward to seeing how guests in the Minneapolis area respond to the service.”
Target’s new partnership with Instacart will adds considerably to Instacart’s inventory of health and beauty items as well as baby products, Bloomberg reports. Target customers can already get free delivery within five days on a $25 minimum order, but the Instacart deal adds perishable foods such as produce, milk, and eggs to online order options and faster delivery.
While the delivery area will initially only include select Minneapolis neighborhoods, both Target and Instacart are exploring plans to expand into additional areas and markets.
“There is a lot going on at Instacart – new cities, new partnerships, new types of products – but most important, we are excited to be reaching so many new customers and giving them a way to shop that meets their needs and fits their busy lifestyles,” says Apoorva Mehta, Founder & CEO at Instacart.
Target’s same-day delivery push comes at the same time the company revamps its grocery department by adding fresh produce and meats. Customers often had issues about the quality and freshness of the products during its first few years, but as of last year, sales in grocery hit $18 billion, accounting for more than 20 percent of revenue.
LOS ANGELES, CA - Berry Fresh is ramping up production for blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico to gear up for a highly promotable season.
Over the next eight to nine months, Berry Fresh says it also plans on increasing berry volume from both its Los Angeles, California and Gloucester, New Jersey distribution facilities for all of its retail partners, according to a press release. Focusing on these two areas will help maintain the company’s presence on the west coast, as well as strengthening its presence on the east.
With the recent start of the Argentine harvest season and the upcoming blackberry and raspberry seasons in Mexico, Berry Fresh’s Evan Pence, North American Procurement Manager, says that the future looks “fantastically bright.”
“Right now, our excitement over our new Mexican raspberry project in Jalisco and our new Argentine and Chilean blueberry plantings has us eager to get this winter season underway,” said Pence. “We are interested in seeing where the raspberry program can go, how far it can take us. Our traditional strength is in blueberries, but the obvious future is in providing the complete berry category. That is our unwavering focus.”
Berry Fresh, through its parent company Agroberries of South America and its sister company Expoberries of Mexico, as well as its own domestic spring and summer production, maintains a stable annual supply of all berries.
Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow as we continue to track the season.
NOGALES, AZ - Facing an evolving and increasingly competitive market, the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas is helping industry members to succeed with its newly developed a series of seminars that will address emerging and ongoing industry issues.
“We are actively seeking ways to improve the well-being of our business members, we want to make sure to provide high-quality material according to the needs an interest expressed by them,” said Lance Jungmeyer, President of the FPAA. “We are certain that these seminars will positively affect the everyday operations as well as the industry as a whole.”
Taking place between the months of September and December, the seminars will cover topics that affect internal aspects of the business’ operation such as temperature control, building strong relationships with clients, and creating a risk assessment plan for packing, storage, distribution, processing and manufacturing.
Attendees can also expect the seminars to cover outside conditions that could represent opportunities or potential threats for the Nogales fresh produce industry, according to a press release. Among these topics are “an inside view of what works and what does not when trying to enter the Canadian market” or “how the tomato supply and demand could be seriously affected by the saturation effect as a result of the proliferation of greenhouses prepared to serve local markets,” the FPAA says.
These seminars conducted by highly trained experts include:
- October 7: Temperature Matters - Keep Produce out of the Kill Zone and Save Money! by Post-Harvest Quality Expert, Dennis Kihlstadius
- The program is ideal for warehouse managers, shippers and those working on quality control.
- October 8: The Saturation Effect - Tomato Market by Roberta Cook of University of California-Davis, a re-eminent Economist in the produce industry
- October 12 to 13: HACCP Training and FSMA Preventative Control Update by Ingrid Peñuelas, an expert in food safety management and quality assurance in manufacturing, agriculture and in facility audits.
- The course is ideal for Managers, Supervisors, HACCP team members and personnel new to HACCP or needing a refresher. This is a prerequisite for taking GFSI level training such as SQF, BRC, Primus GFS, and others.
- November 18: Getting Produce to Market, and Getting Paid in Canada - 2015-16 North American Transportation Preview and PACA-like Trust Update by CH Robinson with participation of Fred Webber of DRC (the Fruit & Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation)
- November 12: Making Adjustments In Accordance with the Tomato Suspension Agreement by Kip Martin, Lawyer of Coogan & Martin
- He has been closely connected to the produce international trade for many years and along with his business partner Daniel J. Coogan is one of the few lawyers in the U.S. with knowledge of administrative regulations and procedures under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act of 1930.
- December 10: Cuba - Analyzing its Potential in the Winter Vegetable Deal By William Messina
- William is an Agricultural Economist at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. He has been tracking the state of the produce industry in Cuba since the 1990s.
- December 16: Into the Great White North - The Road to Sales Success in the Canadian Market by Tom Byttynen
- Byttynen, over the years, purchased thousands of loads of produce from Nogales. Hear the founder of Calgary, Alberta, distributor Thomas Fresh Inc. explain what works – and doesn’t work – in selling to the Canadian market.
To register for any of the seminars, you can contact the FPAA at (520) 287-2707, or email [email protected] for more details.
BELLINGHAM, WA - It’s been a busy year of twists and turns for Haggen, beginning with a large acquisition that increased its stores 10 fold and coming to the end with both a bankruptcy filing and a billion dollar lawsuit.
So many transitions have left a number of speculations in the chain’s wake, including questions about where it will go from here.
Oregon Live reports that documentation from Haggen indicates that it will reorganize around 18 core stores that Alvarez & Marshal, a consulting firm the chain had hired, found to be profitable.
Shortly after these core stores were declared to have a strong brand reputation in their respective areas, the company announced its plan to shutter 27 stores that were not on that list.
For the employees that will lose their positions with these closures, Haggen stated it intends to pay them as quickly as possible through normal payment methods. “Fast pay” laws, however, which usually require payment immediately or within a few days, was declared “unworkable” by the chain, according to Oregon Live.
As to the company’s future plans, the documents indicate that the chain could be planning to sell the core profitable stores as one group after reorganizing around them, according to the report. This is still just speculation, however, as Haggen has not yet revealed anything definitive on closing any more stores.
As we reported previously, it was announced that the company had filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy just after having filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Albertsons, as well as the intent to sell nearly 30 stores. The court permitted it to continue with selling those stores, but Oregon Live noted Haggen will most likely be required to get approval on any future store sales from the court as well.
AndNowUKnow will continue to follow the chain’s plans as they unfold, as well as all other relevant retail news within the industry, so stay tuned.
LOS ANGELES, CA - Following a week of triple-digit-heat, Southern California and parts of Northern California are finally starting to feel like September. Californians can thank Hurricane Linda for this new burst of rain, wind, and fall temperatures in the state.
“On again, off again rain, probably [Tuesday] morning will be the best chance of rain for the LA area and that will last us through [Tuesday] afternoon,” said National Weather Service (NWS) Senior Meteorologist Andrew Rourke. “Looking at maybe a half inch although, honestly, we’ve been fooled by these systems before and sometimes you get a little bit more rain than you think.”
From Monday through early Wednesday of this week, Hurricane Linda, which formed off of Baja California’s coast, will bring moisture as far north as the Central Valley. The trajectory of the storm system is still up in the air, but National Weather Service forecasters said coastal slopes and foothills will experience the highest rainfall amounts.
Rain will fall across portions of Southern California, reaching possible totals nearing 1 inch. It should be noted, however, that even with this amount of rain California’s drought will continue.
“Since many areas have seen little or no rainfall in the past couple of months, buildup of oil on the roadways could lead to extra slippery driving conditions” once the rains begin, said a statement from the NWS. Furthermore, “minor urban roadway flooding will be possible in Los Angeles County, which could be worsened by clogged storm drains and culverts.”
While the drought may still be in full force for the state after this quick storm, at least those people and crops who love cooler temperatures will be happy. AccuWeather reports temperatures will range from the 80s in the Central Valley to the upper 70s along the Coastal Ranges.
Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow as we report any further updates.
CHICAGO, IL - Food Genius, a provider of data for the foodservice industry, has announced a new tool to help curate national menu pricing data called Pricebite.
Foodservice companies still collect this data in antiquated ways, Eli Rosenberg, Co-Founder of Food Genius, explained in a blog post.
"People either have a stack of menus shoved in a drawer, they manually collect pricing data from their competitors, or they resort to sending a costly crew of field data collection specialists across the country or scouring the Internet for weeks or months. Then, they have to spend even more time formatting the data so it can be analyzed," he says. “We’re proud to introduce an alternative.”
Created to help anyone in the restaurant industry receive an instant download of menu pricing data across several popular national restaurant chains, Food Genius reports that this innovation is the product of a lot of time and manpower. While before, foodservice members would either have to do their research on foot or with a manual web search, restaurant by restaurant, with Pricebite, Food Genius uses proprietary data acquisition technologies that allow them to collect menu data at scale, delivering instant results to the customer.
Users will receive pricing info for their core menu items from chains across the country, with the goal of giving them the knowledge to update pricing, compare existing pricing, or create pricing for new items. The pricing data will range everywhere from mom and pop operations, to popular chains like Panera, Five Guys, Sweetgreen, Jersey Mike’s, Chipotle, and Olive Garden, according to a press release.
Available for download at a price of $100.00, this pricing data gives users a more accurate look into pricing in the foodservice marketplace. Once downloaded, the tool is owned in perpetuity and can be used to run further manipulations of the data, depending on your level of sophistication.
Pricebite is just one of many Food Genius projects, the company says. The company has opened up extensive accessibility of data to the foodservice industry, including the data presentation maker app Automat and menu analytics dashboard Dash.
EXETER, CA - California Citrus Mutual (CCM) announced that the California Navel Orange Objective Measurement Report is anticipating 86 million 40 pound cartons of navels, or 3.4 billion pounds of Navel Oranges. 83 million of those cartons are expected to come out of the Central Valley of the state.
Calculated on 2,000 acres fewer than last year, the report was compiled by the Agricultural Statistic Service. Fruit count per tree in District One is up 19% from last year at 412, and 18.5% higher than the 336 fruit average per tree over the last five years. According to a release, these number were collected and projected based on:
- Random sampling of the number of fruit per tree
- Fruit size
- Combined with historical information
- Using statistical formulas to produce the estimate
The CASS reports that District One is comprised of three counties in the Central Valley, and represents an 8.5% increase over California’s harvest last year of seventy-six million cartons.
The big variable, according to what CCM gathered from growers, will be the number of acres, thousands of which were removed due to the drought. According to the report, the “two thousand acre reduction” used by CASS is probably conservative. This would mean that the crop will come in below this estimate.
“Growers, packing house fieldmen, and shippers that CCM spoke with prior to today's release generally believed that the crop was at least the same as last year and probably bigger than last year,” the organization stated in the release, reporting that fruit size this year is to be larger, attributed to timely rainfall and good growing conditions after last spring’s petal fall.
Early rains this fall could result in additional growth that would equate to more cartons.
The average fruit measured 2.248 in diameter as of September 1st, CCM says, just above the 2.230 average over the last five seasons. While external quality was reported to be very good, early rains falling could add to the projected growth and produce more cartons than originally anticipates.
Varieties included in the report are:
- Conventional Navel Oranges
- Organic Navel Oranges
- Specialty Navel Oranges
Harvest is currently expected to being early October.
GRANDVIEW, WA - Get ready for more apples, faster. Conrad & Adams Fruit, the grower-shipper based in Washington state, has officially installed a new apple packing line that will substantially increase the number of bins per hour produced.
“We literally finished packing on a Friday, and they started deconstructing our old line on Saturday so we’d be ready for new crop apples in August,” said Conrad & Adams Fruit Salesperson Carrie Koerner. “Time was of the essence, as the apple crop harvest about 10 days earlier than normal so we didn’t have any wiggle room in the construction process.”
Construction of the new line started this May 1, right after the company finished packing apples from the 2014 harvest, according to a press release. Incorporating the latest internal and external sorting technology, this new technology is expected to double the amount of bins per hour the company can run.
Formed in 2008, Conrad & Adams has been a grower, packer, and shipper of conventional and organic apples, conventional and organic pears, cherries, peaches, nectarines, Italian prunes and plums out of the Yakima Valley. The company operates in the former Snokist and Andrus & Roberts warehouses in Grandview and Sunnyside.
ROCKY FORD, CO - Building from the success of last year’s successful partnership, the Pink Pumpkin Patch Foundation is teaming up once again with Bake It Happen™ to promote breast cancer awareness and raise funds for research via the sale of pink pumpkins.
Starting on September 28th and lasting through October 31st, the Pink Pumpkin Patch Foundation will donate the funds from the sales of pink pumpkins for breast cancer research, while Bake It Happen will also donate funds anytime someone registers, bakes recipes, and shares photos and videos. Last year, the two organizations combined raised $15,000 for a researcher from Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles to make important strides in breast cancer research, according to a press release.
“We are very pleased to partner with the Bake It Happen campaign for a second year; pumpkins and baking go hand in hand so it was a perfect fit from the start,” said Carol Holsopple-Froese, President of the Pink Pumpkin Patch Foundation and cancer survivor. “Their mission aligns with ours and we hope that together we will get closer to finding a cure.”
Shari Brooks, My Judy the Foodie blogger and Co-Founder of Bake It Happen, concurred by saying that she is grateful to partner with such a dedicated foundation.
She added, “Social media continues to be a powerful viral tool in generating awareness for this disease and we strongly believe people want to make a difference; we’ve just created a fun (and tasty) way to do it.”
Since the foundation’s launch in 2012, the Pink Pumpkin Patch has contributed $75,000 to breast cancer research. The foundation works with participating pumpkin growers such as commercial and FFA and 4H chapters nationwide to promote and sell the pink-skinned pumpkins, giving a percentage of their proceeds from each pumpkin sold to the cause.
Qualified researchers are now able to apply for the Pink Pumpkin Patch Foundation grant, through November 6, 2015.