The 2023 celebration of Pear Bureau Northwest's annual World Pear Day is on Dec. 2. Kicking off the 19th annual National Pear Month, this year’s World Pear Day offers consumers around the world the opportunity to celebrate with pears through live chef demos of new pear recipes.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has filed an administrative complaint against United Vegetable Produce Inc. for alleged violations of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. The company, operating from New York, allegedly failed to make payment promptly to two produce sellers in the amount of $100,025 from September 2017 through February 2020.

After a challenging year, culminating with a weather-caused delay in its fall production from Mexico, McAllen, TX-based GR Fresh is looking for a strong rebound as it heads into the holiday season and typically greater production from West Mexico.

The Chilean Blueberry Committee, together with iQonsulting, updated its export estimate for the 2023-24 season, forecasting exports of 76,500 tons of fresh blueberries. This new figure reflects a decrease of 7 percent compared to the first estimate made in October, and a decrease of 13 percent from 2022-23.

Did you ever wonder where all the produce plants originated? We are so busy with keeping up with our responsibilities in the industry that the history of produce items is not on a daily agenda. It’s more of a priority to achieve numbers so we don’t have to explain missing the budget in a meeting.

2023 is a special year for Danziger, celebrating 70 years as a company alongside the celebration of the founder, Ernest Danziger’s 100-year birthday on Nov. 16.