The impact of the freeze that hit northern Mexico in mid-January may be temporary, but it was not insignificant, as short supplies consequent to the freeze and high prices consequent to the diminished supply on a number of commodities were expected to continue to the end of March. For a retail buyer, that is six to seven weeks worth of frustration and disruption to a supermarket’s usual plans for the season

The Associación Mexicana de Horticultura Protegida A.C., or Mexican Association of Protected Horticulture, headquartered in Culiacan, Sinaloa, better known by its Spanish acronym, AMHPAC, has been involved in a variety of activities for the benefit of its members since its founding six years ago, but for the current year, a major focus of the organization is to urge member compliance with five categories of industry standards in order to assure the industry’s ability to compete in a global marketplace, according to Eric Viramontes, chief executive officer of the organization.

One of the regular activities of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas in Nogales, AZ, is to hold seminars on various subjects that will help member companies to improve their businesses.

According to Allison Moore, director of legislative and regulatory affairs for FPAA, the association holds about eight such educational programs a year on a range of subjects, many of them in conjunction with the Eller College of Management, “which is the business school out of the University of Arizona.”

A 10-day comment period closed Feb. 11 on a tentative proposal from the U.S. Department of Commerce for a new tomato suspension agreement with Mexico that is scheduled to take effect March 4, right at the peak of the season.

The proposed new agreement would mandate that all exporters be signatories, whereas the requirement under the current agreement, that has been in place since 1996, was just 85 percent. It would also significantly increase the minimum reference price for all tomato products from Mexico, in some cases nearly three times as high as under the current agreement.

Grower Alliance LLC in Nogales, AZ, which markets a wide assortment of produce commodities from Mexico, has an expanded watermelon program for the 2012-13 season. That expansion is in two areas: the addition of a winter watermelon deal out of the state of Nayarit to supplement the spring and fall programs in Sonora and an increase in mini-seedless watermelon production for the spring and fall.

A little more than a year ago, Sambrailo Packaging in Watsonville, CA, opened two new warehouses, one in Oxnard, CA, and one in Santa Maria, CA, to accommodate the company’s growing business in those areas. The expansion proved fruitful, allowing Sambrailo not only to better service customers in Southern California and the Central Coast, and also northern Baja California, Mexico, but also enabling the company “to expand our customer base” in those areas, according to Jim Scattini, vice president of sales and marketing.