Westfalia Fruit is ringing in the new year with a strong supply of quality avocados sourced from multiple growing regions to meet shopper’s healthy eating demands as diets recalibrate after a season of holiday indulgences. Westfalia is wholly dedicated to providing sustainably grown, premium-quality fruit to the marketplace. Its extensive avocado growing regions and vertical integration enable them to provide retailers with consistent supply to meet year-round demand and quarter one being the key time to promote.

Vision Global Group LLC has been added to the William H. Kopke Jr. Inc. family of companies and is now in full operation. Vision Global Group is an industry leader in the lime, lemon and mango import-export business, and is headquartered in New Jersey, and complemented by teams in Arizona, Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Legacy Farms LLC, based in Anaheim, CA, has acquired the assets of Frieda’s Inc. after more than a year of discussions. The company will now be known as Frieda’s LLC and its new CEO is Dan Madsen, who has been leading Legacy Farms since 2019.

Big Y’s annual Sack Hunger campaign provides funds for the four food banks within its two-state marketing area. In turn, these food banks support local soup kitchens, food pantries, senior food programs, day care centers and many others of the 2,100 member agencies that they help every day. The goal is to maximize access to nutritious food and other resources that support food security for those at risk of hunger.

Dealing with inflation, following trends and predicting the hot produce categories for 2023 were a few of the topics covered by a diverse panel of industry representatives during a Fresh Produce & Floral Council luncheon meeting in Northern California on Wednesday, Jan. 18.

From Ventura County in Southern California, north through San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, to Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, the onslaught of rain, wind and floods is approaching $200 million in potential damages to California’s strawberry farms.

While the majority of family farmers are currently cleaning up minor storm damage, some farms have experienced catastrophic conditions. Erosion has washed away an estimated 350 acres.