An impressive group of retail and foodservice produce buyers have weighed in on the food-safety issue calling for specific Good Agricultural Practices to be in place for spinach by Dec. 15 and for other crops by Feb. 15, 2007.

PHILADELPHIA -- The annual preseason Chilean fruit meeting, held here Oct. 27, brought a number of revelations to the fruit import trade.

The annual meeting, which featured a workshop titled "Enhancement of Chilean Fresh Fruit Trade Operations," is presented by the Chilean & American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia. Roughly 150 people from the industry attended the meeting, which included speakers representing a variety of federal agencies, as well as ASOEX, the Chilean Exporters Association, which is based in Santiago.

SAN DIEGO -- Chile, which typically exports about 80 percent of its annual avocado crop to the United States and expects to do so again this year, has a record crop on the trees and expects to ship a record volume of avocados to the United States during the season which started in earnest in early October.

At a special teleconference meeting, the Western Growers Association board of directors voted to immediately initiate the California marketing agreement and marketing order process to establish mandatory Good Agricultural Practices for the lettuce and leafy greens industries. In addition, at the Oct. 26 meeting, the board voted to initiate a federal marketing order process to develop a comprehensive national spinach and leafy greens GAPs order.

With a nearly 100 percent increase in volume over 2005, the Zespri gold kiwifruit season from New Zealand is now wrapping up. But gold kiwifruit aficionados won't have to wait until next year to enjoy this tropical-sweet sensation. California gold kiwifruit will hit the market in early November, and for the first time ever, gold kiwifruit is now available in smoothie form as an ingredient in the Naked Juice Co.'s new Gold Machine.

SAN DIEGO -- Putting "Ripe" stickers on avocados that are ripe and ready to use creates a "call to action" that motivates consumer purchases and results in increased avocado sales in retail stores, according to Jan DeLyser, vice president of marketing for the California Avocado Commission, based in Santa Ana, CA.

In a recent study, "the stores that had the stickered fruit outperformed the stores without the stickered fruit almost 13 percent," Ms. DeLyser told The Produce News at the CAC booth during the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit, here, Oct. 23.