As the new year rang in, Joel Silverman, owner of Paradise Produce Distributors in Lakeland, FL, was hoping a flood of strawberries would follow.

December was pretty much a washout due to several nights of sub-freezing weather spread over three weeks. At a time when Florida strawberry growers would normally be harvesting thousands of acres, they were instead picking hundreds.

For 107 years, Driscoll Strawberry Associates Inc. has specialized in berries and nothing but.

In 1904, friends Joseph (Ed) Reiter and R.O. Driscoll decided to work together, growing Sweet Briar strawberries in California's Panjaro Valley. A half-century later, the business they founded became Driscoll Strawberry Associates. Flash forward another 50 years and Watsonville, CA-based Driscoll, still family owned and operated, has become one of the world’s great berry brands.

California Giant's Florida strawberry growers got through the December freezes in good shape. Now Director of Marketing Cindy Jewell is focusing on marketing those berries as part of a year-round program that also includes product from company farms in California and Mexico.

A year ago, Winter Haven, FL-based SunnyRidge Farm Inc. took a giant step forward when it opened a new 51,000-square-foot facility in Plant City, FL.

The new facility tripled capacity and was designed to give the company room to grow. That plan is moving ahead according to schedule, said Sal Toscano, who launched the Plant City facility for SunnyRidge and is now leading it through its third season.

Now in its third season growing in Florida, Watsonville, CA-based Well-Pict Inc. again increased production acreage this year and continues to move toward growing nothing but proprietary strawberries in Florida.

As the new year rang in, Plant City, FL's Wishnatzki Inc. was readying for a deluge of strawberries. Company President Gary Wishnatzki told The Produce News Dec. 29 that the company was about to enter its heaviest production of the season for a two-week period that would run through the middle of January.