“We all have to pull together to rebuild the supply chain and listen to our consumers better. They have to tell us what products to sell, they can help us improve and also point us in the right direction on how to market them.” Jim McCann, head of 1-800-Flowers, used these words to cap a dialogue billed as a “fireside chat” with Augusto Solano, president of Asocolflores, the association of Colombian flower exporters.

The Fresh Produce & Floral Council’s Northern California Expo set a new record this year as it drew 1,100 attendees to the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, CA, on April 18. Last year’s attendance was about 1,050, according to Carissa Mace, FPFC president.

“The show keeps growing in popularity as we get information about it out to more and more retailers,” she told The Produce News. “We had many first-time attendees this year who just heard about the show for the first time.”

NORCAL, the California Association of Flower Growers & Shippers, is in the process of hiring a chief executive officer, a step that board members expect will streamline operations. Currently, three full-time professional staff cover business management and special events, publications and member relations, and transportation. The association briefly had an executive director about five years ago, but has had no one in that role since.

There is quite a buzz reverberating within the flower business. The excitement is sure to spread as the word gets out about what is happening. It is no secret that in order to successfully represent the floral industry, the Produce Marketing Association had to have a different approach. This was developed with a floral task force last year and the creation of a new Floral Council this past October.

Since then, conference calls and a March 7 meeting in Dallas by council members have created energy that I have never experienced within our industry.

Second of two parts

“There has been an explosion of rose breeders in the past two decades,” John Dolan observed. Mr. Dolan’s career as a pioneer breeder of South American roses spanned the history of U.S. supermarkets beginning to sell roses from that continent.

“When I first went to South America with E.G. Hill Co. in 1984, few European breeding houses were active. They had varieties like Osicana, Vivaldi and Tineke. A little later, Ecuador started growing Ana, Virginia, First Red, Ambiance, Star 2000 and spray roses like Joy, Porcelina and Lydia.”

HERMOSILLO, MEXICO — They now number 100 growers whose farms cover 27,000 acres in the Hermosillo and Caborca regions. They have been pooling tips and sometimes sharing infrastructure for 32 years. They now see the “Aztec Eagle” and “Producto de México” labels on a variety of exports in the world market.

Who would have thought, in 1980, that lands devoted for decades to garbanzo and other crops for Mexico’s domestic market would one day produce a U.S. No. 1 grape that has found a clientele in 30 countries and counting?