“The biggest change we have from the past” for the spring deal this year is that “our Roma tomato deal will be a lot larger than it was last season, said Jorge Quintero Jr., managing partner of Grower Alliance LLC in Nogales, AZ. “We are expecting a Roma tomato deal … of about 500,000 boxes, which is a significant increase” from the 150,000 boxes of Romas the company shipped in the spring of 2012.

The deal will start in March and run to the middle of June, he said.

Many colored bell peppers grown in Mexico, particularly blocky-style peppers, are grown in shadehouses, but the majority of green bell peppers are still grown open field. Many elongated red bell peppers are also grown open-field.

But at Malena Produce Inc. in Nogales, AZ, “what is new this year is we have green bell peppers grown under shadehouse down in Culiacan,” said Vice President Gonzalo Avila.

Daily Fresh Distributing Inc. in Nogales, AZ, now in its second year in business, will have primarily cucumbers, green and yellow squash and fresh grapes for its spring program this year, according to Paul Bachelier, who started the company in September 2011 after 18 years with Omega Produce Co.

The company had expected to also have green and red bell peppers through mid-March, but “we lost all our bells” due to a freeze in mid-January, he said.

The impact of the freeze that hit northern Mexico in mid-January may be temporary, but it was not insignificant, as short supplies consequent to the freeze and high prices consequent to the diminished supply on a number of commodities were expected to continue to the end of March. For a retail buyer, that is six to seven weeks worth of frustration and disruption to a supermarket’s usual plans for the season

The Associación Mexicana de Horticultura Protegida A.C., or Mexican Association of Protected Horticulture, headquartered in Culiacan, Sinaloa, better known by its Spanish acronym, AMHPAC, has been involved in a variety of activities for the benefit of its members since its founding six years ago, but for the current year, a major focus of the organization is to urge member compliance with five categories of industry standards in order to assure the industry’s ability to compete in a global marketplace, according to Eric Viramontes, chief executive officer of the organization.

One of the regular activities of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas in Nogales, AZ, is to hold seminars on various subjects that will help member companies to improve their businesses.

According to Allison Moore, director of legislative and regulatory affairs for FPAA, the association holds about eight such educational programs a year on a range of subjects, many of them in conjunction with the Eller College of Management, “which is the business school out of the University of Arizona.”