Canadian Produce Marketing Association Convention Chair Bernadette Hamel, vice president of national procurement-produce for Metro Richelieu Inc., is ready to welcome the industry to the largest convention in CPMA history. Ms. Hamel — along with CPMA staff and the 12 committees tasked with bringing the annual convention to life — has been working hard to make Toronto’s event one that shouldn’t be missed.

Canadawide will be setting up shop at Booth 305 at the 2013 CPMA Convention April 17-19 to showcase its new Frescadel product line. The line features a new convenient clamshell used for a variety of products, including kiwifruit, grapes, clementines, peaches, plums and nectarines.

With today’s consumers looking for fresh produce full of flavor, packaging is a concern.

Jon Hyatt, son of the company’s namesake, who runs Jim Hyatt Produce Co. Inc., along with his brother Paul and General Manager Mike Goettsch, admits not much has changed for the firm over the years.

“I’d say we are pretty much the same as we were last year,” he said. “We’re one of those companies that’s just the same thing over and over again. It’s been the same since we began many years ago.”

Oren Shapiro had a booth along one of the main aisles of the World Floral Expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, and handled a steady stream of interested buyers at the show. Mr. Shapiro, president of Mrs. Bloom’s (Thai) Direct, pronounced himself satisfied with the foot traffic and the interest shown by buyers. “It was a great show for us,” he summarized.

Robert Ilsink, a director of Interplant Roses in Holland, was not unhappy with the show, but he wanted more. “There could be more people here. There could be more exhibitors here,” he said.

NEW YORK — Dick van Raamsdonk was only 24 when he staged his first flower trade show, in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1985. He was calm, with nerves of steel. It was when he came to his home country of Holland to put on his second show that he got stage fright.

“I was very nervous about opening a flower show in Holland, my native country,” he said at the World Floral Expo, here, almost 200 shows and three decades later.

NEW YORK — New products such as green orchids and spray roses 100 or more to the stem in startling new colors and double-sized blossoms were introduced at the World Floral Expo, here, March 13-15.

Arie Van Vugt, president of Plainview Growers in Pompton Plains, NJ, is one of three growers in the United States licensed to use a patented Dutch infusion technology to produce brightly colored orchids. A blue orchid came out about three years ago; lavender, two years ago; yellow last year; and this year, he introduced a bright green orchid called Limelight.