Food safety and doing business across international borders will be the primary focal points of the 2012 America Trades Produce conference, co-hosted by the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas and Texas Produce Association March 21-23 in Nogales, AZ.

The border town of Nogales is representative of the focus of the conference. A fence divides the city into two hemispheres that function as a single unit, the north in Arizona, the south in Sonora, Mexico. Millions of tons of produce cross the border each year, and both sides of the city rely on reciprocal trade for survival.

The National Mango Board has numerous promotions planned in both the retail and foodservice arenas in an effort to increase consumption in the United States of the world’s most popular fruit.

Retail promotions

If an industry is not official until it has a festival of some sort, then Florida blueberries have finally arrived. May 4-6 will see the first-ever Florida Blueberry Festival in Brooksville, FL.

The festival is a natural outgrowth of the Florida blueberry industry’s success, organizers say.

“It’s a really big deal,” said Ken Patterson of Island Grove Ag Products in Hawthorne, FL, one of the state’s larger producers of blueberries and plants and one of the key players behind the event. “I think we’ll have 50,000 people there this year.”

WASHINGTON -- Sprout producers will get special help in meeting the final produce-safety standards as the Food & Drug Administration announced Feb. 28 the creation of a new Sprouts Safety Alliance to identify best practices for the safe production of sprouts.

The produce industry is awaiting a proposal, which is under review by the White House, that will set federal standards for the production and harvesting of produce under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. The agency missed the Jan. 4 deadline that Congress set to publish a proposed rule.

Last year's deadly Listeria outbreak tied to cantaloupe has caused the produce industry to take another look at its handling recommendations, and now the industry is holding four meetings to solicit input on those changes.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention blamed last year's outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes that resulted in 146 illnesses and 30 deaths in 28 states to tainted cantaloupe from Colorado-based Jensen Farms.