Southern hospitality

Pro­duce grow­ers are head­ing to Tampa Bay for the 2012 South­ern Expo­sure trade show.

The South­east Pro­duce Council’s (SPC) South­ern Expo­sure trade show is a favorite for many pro­duce grow­ers. Its smaller size and inti­mate set­ting pro­vides a breed­ing ground for devel­op­ing new rela­tion­ships. This year’s show promises to be no different.

“One thing unique about South­ern Expo­sure is that we limit the foot traf­fic on the floor to deci­sion mak­ers,” says John Shu­man, SPC pres­i­dent. “For a ven­dor, there is value there for qual­ity traffic.”

A topic indus­try observers are cur­rently focused is the Prod­uct Trace­abil­ity Ini­tia­tive, says Shu­man. Observers also pre­dict a con­tin­ued growth towards value-added and pre-packaged pro­duce items. Here are some of the com­pa­nies exhibit­ing at South­ern Expo­sure tak­ing place at the Tampa Con­ven­tion Cen­ter from March 1 to 3, and the inno­va­tions they will be shar­ing with attendees.

Bland Farms Booth #215
Bland Farms is work­ing toward strength­en­ing its rela­tion­ships with its cus­tomer base by cre­at­ing unique sales and growth oppor­tu­ni­ties, says Sarah See­bran, mar­ket­ing man­ager. “The suc­cess we had with our cus­tomers last year has prompted us to increase the avail­abil­ity of these unique retail solu­tions. These prod­ucts are cre­ated by the retail sweet onion experts at our farm in col­lab­o­ra­tion with mer­chan­dis­ing pro­fes­sion­als spe­cific to meet our cus­tomers’ needs.”

Atten­dees can view Bland Farms Vidalia sweet onions, which come into har­vest mid-April, and the Texas 1015 Sweet Onions, which begin har­vest­ing mid-March. www.blandfarms.com

Chelan Fresh Booth #140
With Chelan Fresh’s first Fuel Up and Play 60 (FUP60) retail pro­mo­tion behind them, the com­pany is get­ting ready to kick­start next year. The FUP60 pro­mo­tion was devel­oped by the National Foot­ball League in con­junc­tion with the National Dairy Coun­cil to encour­age healthy eat­ing habits in schools nation­wide. Last year Chelan Fresh expanded the cam­paign, pro­mot­ing it at the retail level. “We’re hop­ing to really knock it out of the park next year,” says Terry Braith­waite, direc­tor of marketing.

The com­pany is also show­ing its new bin design that fea­tures a lighter back­ground color. “We’ve been using the same col­ors for a long time; it was time to give our com­pany a boost,” says Braith­waite. The mer­chan­dis­ers will fea­ture both apples and pears on them so they can be used inter­change­ably. www.chelanfresh.com

Del Monte Fresh Pro­duce Booth #214
Del Monte Fresh Pro­duce is fea­tur­ing its new pro­pri­etary MAG melon. With a smaller seed cav­ity, it offers con­sumers more value per pur­chase and is avail­able year-round. “It has a more pleas­ant, con­sis­tent and con­cen­trated aroma com­pared to tra­di­tional can­taloupes,” says Diony­s­ios Chris­tou, vice pres­i­dent of marketing.

Com­ing this year, Del Monte will be devel­op­ing mar­ket­ing cam­paigns in line with its Eat Healthy. Live Healthy. tagline. “We’ll be launch­ing sev­eral pro­mo­tions that assist with encour­ag­ing con­sumers to lead health­ier lifestyles. Retail­ers and con­sumers can expect to see some of these cam­paigns to be launched through our dig­i­tal and social media out­lets,” says Chris­tou. www.freshdelmonte.com

Dole Fresh Fruit Booth #237
Dole Fresh Fruit is intro­duc­ing its Go Bananas Every Day cam­paign, a year-long effort to posi­tion Dole Bananas as part of a daily rou­tine. The cam­paign was launched at the begin­ning of the year with Dole’s 366 Ways to Go Bananas in 2012, offer­ing unique banana-themed recipes, serv­ing sug­ges­tions and house­hold tips and trivia. “We’re using the 366 pro­gram to com­mu­ni­cate the fun, ver­sa­til­ity, porta­bil­ity and health and nutri­tional ben­e­fits of America’s favorite fruit,” says Bil Gold­field, com­mu­ni­ca­tions manager.

Dole will work with retail­ers to develop in-store pro­mo­tions, point-of-sale mate­ri­als, sam­pling events and other pro­grams. www.dole.com

Idaho Potato Com­mis­sion Booth #504
The Idaho Potato Commission’s (IPC) The Great Big Idaho Potato Truck will go on tour this spring, vis­it­ing cities across the coun­try in cel­e­bra­tion of the IPC’s 75th anniver­sary. The truck was mod­eled after a pop­u­lar Idaho post­card that showed a giant potato chained to the back of a truck, say com­pany offi­cials. It was unveiled in Decem­ber at the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

Com­pany offi­cials will be avail­able at SPC to dis­cuss pro­mo­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties at retail loca­tions dur­ing the Famous Idaho Potato Tour. The IPC is also hop­ing the truck will help bring aware­ness and raise money for Meals on Wheels, a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that deliv­ers meals to home­bound seniors.

The Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion (AHA) check­mark will also be show­ing up on Idaho pota­toes. “The AHA check­mark rein­forces our nutri­tional ben­e­fit,” says Seth Pem­sler, vice pres­i­dent of retail and inter­na­tional. The logo will appear on Idaho potato pack­ag­ing, in adver­tis­ing and on the truck. www.idahopotato.com

Mon­terey Mush­rooms Booth #522
Mon­terey Mush­rooms is high­light­ing its new sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing with consumer-friendly labels. It fea­tures biodegrad­able paper printed with recipes, meal ideas and nutri­tional infor­ma­tion. The labels high­light “Deli­ciously Healthy” and “High in Vit­a­min D” with a mouth-watering image of a recipe idea, says Joe Cald­well, vice pres­i­dent. “We will also high­light the ‘Locally Grown—Nationwide’ aspect of our nine regional farms.”

Mon­terey Mush­rooms con­tin­ues to work with its retail part­ners on pro­mo­tions that focus on the three fea­tures of Monterey’s prod­ucts, nutri­tion, ver­sa­til­ity and weight man­age­ment, says Cald­well. “Con­sumer demand is con­sis­tently grow­ing as more and more con­sumers are real­iz­ing the deli­ciously healthy ben­e­fits of mush­rooms and how ver­sa­tile they can really be,” says Cald­well. www.montereymushrooms.com

Prime Time Pro­duce Booth #602
Prime Time Pro­duce is show­ing its new mini pep­per prod­uct. The smaller-sized pep­pers are sold in a mix of col­ors in 1– and 2-pound bags year-round. They have caught on quickly and retail­ers are hav­ing good results, says Mike Aiton, direc­tor of marketing.

Prime Time has also extended a num­ber of its cur­rent prod­uct lines—mixed color pack­ages, value packs and pre­mium packs. “We are pretty much able to cus­tom pack­age any­thing retail­ers would like to carry,” says Aiton. “We are also doing more extended pric­ing for peo­ple to take the ups and downs out of the mar­ket swings and are happy to talk about that at the show.”  www.primetimeproduce.com

Shu­man Pro­duce Booth #200
“We’re proud to share our brand new redesigned web­site with the indus­try,” says John Shu­man, pres­i­dent and direc­tor of sales for Shu­man Pro­duce. He says the new look was cre­ated to appeal directly to con­sumers, pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion on Shu­man Pro­duce, recipes fea­tur­ing Real­Sweet onions and a farm-to-table photo essay that illus­trates how Real­Sweet onions go from a seed to the retailer’s shelf.

Last year Shu­man redesigned its con­sumer bag to include nutri­tional infor­ma­tion, recipes, a QR code that directs con­sumers to a mobile web page and call-outs to inter­act with the brand through social media sites.

“We are avail­able to meet dur­ing the show and we wel­come retail­ers to visit the Shu­man Pro­duce staff through­out the day,” says Shu­man. “As a lead­ing grower/shipper of Vidalia sweet onions and Peru­vian sweet onions, we’re proud to share the details of our inno­v­a­tive mar­ket­ing, ded­i­ca­tion to food safety and year round pro­gram with retail­ers.” www.shumanproduce.com

Vidalia Onion Com­mit­tee Booth #100
The “Amer­i­can Favorites: Sweet Vidalias and Coun­try Music” pro­mo­tion is back for a sec­ond year. The Vidalia Onion Com­mit­tee (VOC) will be releas­ing details of the cam­paign con­ducted in part­ner­ship with Uni­ver­sal Music Group out of Nashville.

VOC offi­cials will announce which coun­try music artists will be fea­tured in the pro­mo­tion, dis­cuss the retail dis­play con­test and talk about oppor­tu­ni­ties to get con­sumers involved. “Last year’s pro­gram was very suc­cess­ful; we received pos­i­tive feed­back from both retail­ers and con­sumers,” says Wendy Bran­nen, exec­u­tive direc­tor. “Stores got really excited about the dis­play con­test so we are going to con­tinue it but struc­ture it a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ently.” www.vidaliaonion.org

Wayne E. Bai­ley Pro­duce Booth #629
Wayne E. Bai­ley Produce’s steam­able sweet pota­toes have a new ship­per. The stand-up car­ton is shipped and can be set up as a sec­ondary dis­play in the pro­duce sec­tion or used as a cross-merchandising tool through­out the store, say com­pany officials.

“It’s a very col­or­ful dis­play car­ton that comes boxed up as a ship­per with 12 items to a case,” says George Wooten, pres­i­dent. “We sup­ply that to the store as an aid to help mar­ket the prod­uct. You don’t have to refrig­er­ate them so you can put them in key places in the store that would drive some traffic.”

The steam­able pota­toes have been very suc­cess­ful, says Wooten. Offered under both the Green Giant brand and the grower’s pri­vate label brand, George Foods, the microwav­able bag con­tains five to six sweet pota­toes that cook in eight to 10 min­utes. www.sweetpotatoes.com

Well-Pict Berries Booth #404
Well-Pict Berries is fea­tur­ing its 1– and 2-pound clamshells of straw­ber­ries, grown in Florida. The grower’s expanded grow­ing regions in Florida, Cal­i­for­nia and Baja allow them to meet retail­ers’ demands through­out the year. Retail­ers can also check out the new rasp­berry vari­eties and organic straw­ber­ries available.

Well-Pict is also offer­ing retail­ers a chance for their fif­teen min­utes of fame with a dis­play con­test. Retail­ers can sub­mit pho­tos of their in-store dis­plays and the best dis­plays will be used in an ad fea­tur­ing the pho­tos. www.wellpict.com

Wilcox Fresh Booth #127
Wilcox Fresh is con­tin­u­ing to work with retail­ers to help dif­fer­en­ti­ate their prod­ucts and pro­grams. “We offer retail­ers the oppor­tu­nity for us to visit their stores and their senior lead­er­ship to help them update their strat­egy for the potato and onion cat­e­gory,” says Jim Richter, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of sales and mar­ket­ing. “A sec­ond thing we’ll be doing is devel­op­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to help retail­ers take advan­tage of prod­uct fluc­tu­a­tion and mar­ket vol­ume shifts so that they can stay com­pet­i­tive in the marketplace.”

As value-added and con­ve­nience prod­ucts con­tinue to be in demand, Wilcox is high­light­ing its Potato Jazz prod­uct and its retail-friendly four-count trays with an Idaho baker wrapped in a black foam tray with the company’s Mother Earth Fresh label. “It’s a very attrac­tive pack­age,” says Richter.  www.wilcoxfresh.com