Giumarra Wenatchee is planning its marketing efforts to prepare for the upcoming Washington apricot season. “Good early spring weather has produced some exceptional quality apricots for this summer’s harvest,” Jason Bushong, sales manager for Giumarra Wenatchee, said in a press release. “Fruit size is optimal for our retail and club store programs this season.”

California Giant Berry Farms, headquartered in Watsonville, CA, is moving into the 2012 Pacific Northwest blueberry season on a positive note. “We source from Oregon and from British Columbia during the key summer months each season. We are expecting a normal season, even though there has been a lot of early rain in the Northwest this year,” Director of Marketing Cindy Jewell told The Produce News on June 7.

Mike Klackle, part of the blueberry sales team at Curry & Co. in Brooks, OR, said this year’s blueberry season is shaping up well. “On the marketing side, the window looks to be pretty dynamic,” he told The Produce News June 11. “It looks to be an interesting season.”

According to the Oregon Blueberry Commission, the state’s producers are expected to harvest over 70 million pounds of the fruit this season. If reached, the volume will be another production record.

“Oregon growers routinely realize the highest crop yields per acre compared to any other state, an estimated 10,000 pounds per acre,” the commission’s website states. “Oregon farms range from large operations that ship their crop to both national and international buyers to small family farms with less than 10 acres offering on-farm sales.”

For the first time, domestic blueberry producers will be moving product to South Korea. All eyes are focused on Oregon, the first and only state in the nation to have executed such a fresh market agreement.

Renwick Wachenfeld of West Hollywood, CA, floral designer for Gelson’s Markets, a 17-store upscale chain with headquarters in Encino, CA, won the Iron Designer contest June 22 at the International Floriculture Expo. He led a field of seven designers from the United States and the Netherlands who had only 20 minutes, a surprise package of flowers, a vase and other ingredients, and the theme of “Romantic Love” to guide them.