Two Florida-based produce marketers are joining forces to create a new entity that will specialize in sourcing, growing, packing, shipping and distributing several varieties of papayas as well as other tropical fruits grown in Brazil, Ecuador, Belize, Mexico and other countries in Central America and South America.

Southern Specialties Inc., based in Pompano Beach, FL, and HLB Tropical Food USA Inc., based in Plantation, FL, reached an agreement to create a new joint venture called HLB Specialties LLC.

Building on the success of last year's program, the Chilean Avocado Importers Association has again partnered with college football’s premier bowl game destination, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, which will be played Jan. 1, 2011, in Glendale, AZ.

NEWARK, DE — To encourage the produce industry to think differently about the concept of value, Bryan Silbermann, Produce Marketing Association's president and chief executive officer, will charge the industry to look beyond price alone for ways to connect to consumers’ personal values when he presents his annual state of the industry address this year.

It won't be a record crop, but the 2010 California kiwifruit harvest is expected to yield a packout that is up significantly from last year and on the high side of average.

According to Nick Matteis, the assistant manager of the California Kiwifruit Commission, the commission’s executive committee met Sept. 29, just as the new harvest was getting underway, and approved an estimate of 7.5 million to 8 million tray-equivalents for the 2010 crop. That is a jump from the official 6.5 million-tray estimate made earlier this summer.

In late July, Save-A-Lot and its parent company Supervalu made a move to strengthen its position in south Texas, partnering with Rafael Ortega, owner of Texas-based El Ahorro Supermarkets and La Michoacana Meat Markets, to form a new company, Adventure Supermarkets LLC. The company will own and operate six former Save-A-Lot stores in the Houston and south Texas markets under a co-branded format, El Ahorro Save-A-Lot, with a focus on Hispanic consumers.

When Juvenal Chavez immigrated to the United States in 1984 from his native Mexico, he naturally looked for food products that were familiar to him.

"My wife and I usually had to go to three different places to get what we needed," he said. “We went to one place for the groceries, another place for the meat and a third place for produce. It became my dream and vision to open up a store that carried all the products that the Latino shopper would want.”