Viva Fresh gets high praise from exhibitors

With more than 2,500 attendees roaming the 200-booth Viva Fresh Expo in Dallas on April 1, the show got very high marks from exhibitors who lauded both the intimacy of the show and the great turnout by buyers.

“This is the third time we have exhibited at this show,” said Maggie Bezart Hall, director of strategic sales and marketing for La Bonanza Avocados. “We are big supporters of Viva Fresh and this show is checking all the boxes. We’ve seen incredible customer turnout. We had a number of prearranged meetings with our best customers and we’ve also met a lot of new customers. And we’ve seen good participation by both retail and foodservice buyers. Both are very important to us.”

She added that this is a perfect show for the La Bonanza as it brings its fruit into the United States through Texas via its Mission warehouse in the Rio Grande Valley.

Cindy Swanberg Schwing, vice president of marketing for Splendid By Porvenir, noted that it is her fifth Viva Fresh but the first time Splendid is an exhibitor. “We’ve seen tremendous traffic,” she said. “This is a great opportunity to showcase who we are and what we do.”

Schwing, who joined Splendid in the summer of 2022, said the mango specialist has joined the Texas International Produce Association and is very excited about the connections it has made through TIPA.

Baltazar Garcia, vice president of sales for Local Bounti in its Southern California office in Carpinteria, said the company was touting exciting news at Viva Fresh. “We’ve broken ground on our new facility in Texas,” he said, standing next to a shiny shovel illustrating the event. The facility is in Mount Pleasant, TX, about 120 miles east of Dallas, which will give Local Bounti great access to the entire Midwest from its new CEA (controlled environment agriculture) facility when it opens later this year.

Garcia said the show “is very well attended and the perfect place to emphasize that our local customers will soon be able to have very easy access to our great lineup of products.”

Another exhibitor singing the praises of Viva Fresh was Commissioner Eleazar Guajardo of the city of Pharr in south Texas. The elected official was there to encourage produce shippers and importers to cross their Mexican grown product at the Pharr Bridge. He noted the bridge is currently in the process of a major expansion, which will increase its daily capacity from 3,500 trucks to 6,000. The new lanes are expected to open in late 2024 or early 2025. “We’re here to see the growers and importers and urge them to use the Pharr Bridge for their shipments,” he said. “There are a lot of our customers here.”

Manny Fajardo of iDeal HarBest, headquartered in Nogales, AZ, said the company is only seven years old and 2023 marks its second year at Viva Fresh. “There is great turnout,” he said. “We have had a great show, hitting all the marks on our check list.”

iDeal HarBest has a warehouse in McAllen, TX, and Fajardo said Viva Fresh offers a perfect opportunity to connect with its Texas customers to tout its line of conventional and organic vegetables, grown in Mexico and shipped through Texas ports of entry.

William Kopke of William H. Kopke Jr. Inc. in Great Neck, NY, was at Viva Fresh for the first time to emphasize the company’s recent joint venture with Vision Import Group and the rebranding of that company to Vision Global Group. “Vision exhibited last year so we are in their space this year showcasing all of our product lines,” he said. “This is a great show for us as we have a good presence in the Southwest and we have been able to see many of our customers. There has been great traffic throughout the show.”

He said the partnership allows Kopke to expand its already robust fruit import business as Vision Global Group is a significant and year-round importer of limes, lemons and mangos, which align very well with Kopke’s lineup of grapes, citrus, stone fruits, pears, apples and specialties.

John Pandol of Pandol Brothers in Delano, CA, said the Viva Fresh Expo fits perfectly with the company’s marketing strategy.  “We do eight regional shows a year, typically one every four to six weeks,” he said. “Retailers want to plan three to four months out so when we are at a show, we are looking at the products we have coming about three months from now.”

At Viva Fresh, Pandol was touting their upcoming blueberries from Mexico followed by their Georgia crop. “We just try to make a quick pitch to the retailers,” he said.  “As they say, ‘be brief, be blunt, be gone.’”

Dante Galeazzi, executive director of TIPAb called the 2023 Viva Fresh Expo, “the best one yet. We are growing every year. This is the most attendees we have ever had,” he said. “Our goal is grow the return on investment every year and we have accomplished that.”

Galeazzi said reviews from exhibitors and attendees have been very positive. He noted that this year there was a waiting list for exhibitors and cautioned that it could be longer next year. For the 2024 show in Dallas, there is only room for 170 companies to exhibit.  “We are going to have to have some tough conversation,” he said. “We want to have a regional show featuring many Texas companies and we are going to do that.”

Galeazzi said the increasing number of attendees is a good sign, and there will be room for even more next year, but he added that keeping the show intimate to facilitate the connections between exhibitors and buyers remains the top priority. “Every year, we never forget that first and foremost our members are looking to do business, and we are here to help them accomplish that.”