The movement of Wisconsin’s storage potato crop “is really good. The quality is excellent,” said Tamas Houlihan, director of communications for the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association, based in Antigo, WI.

The yields of the crop harvested in 2013 were a little lower than the 2012 crop. But sales in the last two weeks of December 2013 were 18 percent over the same period in 2012. “Prices a quite a bit higher. In some cases they’re double last year,” he said.

Dominic Russo, buyer and sales associate for Rocky Produce Inc., located on the Detroit Produce Terminal, told The Produce News that the Polar Vortex in early January added to what was already a strange couple of weeks.

“We had a holiday in the middle of the week, worked for two days and then had a weekend,” said Russo. “The next week was the same routine, and then just as things were getting back to normal the storm hit, so things were off track for a few weeks.”

A booming manufacturing city with a population of over 1.8 million in the 1950s, Detroit, MI, has faced several decades of economic and population decline.

Between 2000 and 2010 the city’s population fell by 25 percent, changing its ranking from the nation’s 10th largest city to the 18th.

In 2010, Detroit’s population was 713,777 — reflecting over a 60 percent drop from its peak population six decades earlier.

This decline was accompanied by an equal decline in its economic strength.

The Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market announced that Kings Food Markets, based in Parsippany, NJ, has won $6,500 in Market Bucks after it was randomly selected from entrants who visited the PWPM booth at the New York Produce Show in December.

The $6,500 grand prize was sponsored by 13 participating merchants to support purchases at the market. The Kings Food Market produce staff will also receive a guided tour of the PWPM.

“We are really on pace to finish early,” David Moquist said of his potato company, O.C. Schulz & Sons Inc., which is located in Crystal, ND. “It seems we’re going at a good pace,” he said prior to Christmas.

“The price has been steady all season. Except for being short on volume to begin with, it’s all gone pretty well. We expect to be done one month earlier than usual. We will be done toward the end of March or in early April — versus our usual finish in late April or early May.”

Chelan Fresh Marketing continues to provide its retail partners with category management expertise designed to increase sales and promote premium product. Serving as a link between growers and retailers, the company — which represents more than 419 growers from its headquarters in Chelan, WA — has been moving quality tree fruit since 2004.