Strella, a freshness management company that builds technology to predict produce maturity, launched an automated quality management platform for retailers.

To date, Strella has worked predominantly with apple and pear suppliers utilizing proprietary sensing technology to predict shelf life and optimize inventory management. For nearly four years, it has worked with some of the largest U.S. apple and pear suppliers to make maturity-based inventory decisions. It has monitored nearly 2 billion pieces of fruit since 2019.

PickTrace has been selected as the Labor Management Solution of the Year in the 2022 AgTech Breakthrough Awards conducted by AgTech Breakthrough, which recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global agricultural and food technology markets today.

PickTrace enables organizations to rapidly hire and re-hire their workforce by digitizing the I-9 and W-4 document completion and storage process, removing the need for paper onboarding packets and manual data entry of employee details into payroll systems.

Wada Farms is seeing a bit of a delay with the start of its potato harvest in Colorado, and it anxiously awaits the influx of additional product in the currently depleted pipeline.

“We have nothing left in storage right now [in Colorado], and we’re seeing record high markets,” Michele Peterson, who works in sales for Wada Farms, said Aug. 11. “We usually start harvest around August 15, but we’re a couple of weeks late this year.”

Due to Peter Persoon's unexpected passing, a vacancy has arisen on the board of the Beekenkamp Group. Beekenkamp Group is working to fill this vacancy as soon as possible. Erik Leeuwaarden is currently taking over the duties of Peter Persoon.

Erik Leeuwaarden is a member of the supervisory board of the Beekenkamp Group. Erik has been active as financial director of Royal FloraHolland for more than 20 years. Erik, together with An Beekenkamp, ​​Marc Driessen and Peter Zaat, will form the board of directors of the Beekenkamp Group in the coming period.

The New England Produce Council’s 22nd annual Produce, Floral & Foodservice Expo was held Aug. 24-25 at the Omni at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. Floral industry members in attendance showcased their products for a packed trade show floor. The show was a great opportunity to get facetime buyers in the New England area.

The floral industry is gearing up for the 2022 Fun N’ Sun convention, taking place Aug. 29-31 at the historic Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, CA. The convention is hosted by CalFlowers, a leading, national floral association with members across all industry segments in 47 states.

“This convention has been going on for a very long time,” said Steve Dionne, executive director of CalFlowers. “We have an every other year format, but we actually skipped last year because of COVID, so everyone is very excited to get together this year.”