The Star Group continues to innovate and respond to consumer demand for taste and convenience and earns a win for Best New Product at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association’s 95th annual Fresh Week with Inspired Salads.

The Best New Product Award was one of five New Produce Showcase Award categories that included Packaging Innovation, New Technology, Snackable Product, and Organic Product. Fifty-six products from 42 companies were featured this year, and winners were chosen by a panel of judges from across the industry.

John Anderson, chairman, CEO and managing partner of The Oppenheimer Group, has been named the recipient of the 2021 CPMA Lifetime Achievement Award. He was honored at the CPMA Fresh Week.

Anderson is known for his strategic vision and outstanding leadership skills. He joined Oppy in 1975 when the company was a single office produce sales operation, earning just a few million dollars in annual revenue. He has since then become a leading grower, marketer, and distributor of fresh produce, generating a billion dollars in sales each year.

As part of CPMA Fresh Week, an April 15 Canadian food industry panel convened online to discuss increasing online sales.

“Online grocery and food sales took the world by storm in the past year, forcing the industry to transform the way it interacts with its customers,” CPMA said in a statement. The featured panel examined “the opportunities for online growth, marketing in a virtual world and what online sales mean for the future of brick-and-mortar retail.”

Mucci Farms has been awarded with the Packaging Innovation Award for its new Naked Leaf Living Basil Sleeve at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association’s 2021 Annual Convention & Trade Show. The 95th CPMA show was held in a virtual format featuring exhibitors from across the North American produce industry.

Ocean Mist Farms, a leading grower and marketer of fresh artichokes in the U.S., will attend the 2021 CPMA show and highlight the full line of its award-winning Season & Steam convenience vegetable line. A key area of focus will center on the five new products introduced last fall.

As the industry anticipates the return and revitalization of Canada’s primary produce event in its new form, leading grower, marketer and distributor of fresh produce Oppy added Canadian category development to the role of one of its most valued veterans.