IFCO, a leading supplier of reusable packaging containers, is on a self-proclaimed mission to make the fresh grocery supply chain sustainable.

Toward that goal, the company recently held a webinar, which can be viewed on its website, exploring the role technology and data play in sustainability. Titled “Discovering Digital and Sustainable Fresh Food Supply Chains,” the webinar featured three experts discovering the topic.

The Hunts Point Produce Market is the biggest produce market in the country, and if only the sale of fruits and vegetables is taken into consideration, the largest in the world.

When Jairo Ramirez was younger he would get up every Saturday at 3 a.m. to help his father and uncle with their local business, Miami-based Genaro Produce, and he always looked forward to helping and learning more about what they were doing.

“I’ve been in this business since I was 10; my dad was a driver for Chiquita Banana before he started his own business, and when they started, I helped out,” he said.

That led him to start Mundo Tropical LLC two years ago, a tropical importer and wholesaler working out of Miami.

WP Produce has been a well-known trusted grower-shipper of fresh, tropical fruits and vegetables for almost four decades.

With farms in Florida and the Dominican Republic, as well as having close partnerships with numerous farmers in Central and South America, the second-generation family business has grown to be one of the largest suppliers of tropical and specialty produce items today, shipping worldwide.

Sunny Valley International has marketed New Jersey peaches for nearly 30 years and is the exclusive marketing agent for the Jersey Fruit Cooperative and Larchmont Farms.

“We market yellow and white flesh peaches and yellow nectarines under the Jersey Fruit and Just Picked labels,” said Tom Beaver, director of sales and marketing for the Glassboro, NJ-based company. “We are the largest shipper of New Jersey stone fruit by volume. Typically, we ship New Jersey peaches and nectarines from late-June through Labor Day.”

When strolling the aisles of your local grocery store, you most likely can’t go more than a few feet without seeing packaging or signage boasting products being plant-based. Whether it’s beverages, snacks, even beauty products, the buzzword is (and has been) everywhere. We’re seeing this shift toward everything being plant-based continue to dominate the shelves and it brings up a larger question: in this plant-based evolution, what are the original plants? Fruits and vegetables.