At least 15m and as many as 40m fruit trees across Emilia Romagna will need to be pulled up and replanted, after thousands of the region’s orchards were inundated by the worst flooding to hit Italy in more than a century. read more

Leading apple brand Pink Lady is rolling out a new promotion offering shoppers the chance to win monthly prizes, hitting shelves in Morrisons stores across the UK. read more

Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn says its strawberry supply chains can be “smarter and more efficient” thanks to new artificial Intelligence and algorithms that reduce food waste and predict how long the fruit will last. read more

Discount supermarket Lidl GB has announced its third pay rate increase in 12 months which will impact all of its 24,500 hourly-paid colleagues. read more

A new apple from Italian varietal club VOG is taking the UK capital by storm with a major marketing campaign on London’s double deckers. read more

Leading South African citrus company ClemenGold International has said that it is teaming up with a relief organisation to deliver some 1,000 tonnes of citrus to help alleviate the plight of people in some of the country’s poorer communities. read more

Increased throughput, accuracy and quality have been unveiled as key improvements to the updated Visar Sortop carrot optical sorter. read more

Tesco and WWF have teamed up with start-up tech innovator AgriSound to roll out its ground-breaking insect-monitoring device Polly across several English apple orchards. read more

Waitrose is claiming a UK first by launching a new own-label, organic and Fairtrade coconut oil. read more

New Zealand’s kiwifruit producers are estimating far lower volumes this year, although quality is expected to be high. This is the result of difficult weather conditions during the 2023 growing season. Zespri forecasts exports of around 136m trays of Green, SunGold and RubyRed kiwifruit to
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California-based fresh berries expert Driscoll’s is celebrating a decade in China by announcing the tripling of its investment in the country over the next five years. Miles Reiter, chairman and CEO of Driscoll’s, said that he has noticed the great potential of the Chinese market, which
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In the 2022/23 campaign, Chile’s deciduous fruit crop is estimated to have fallen, according to FAS Santiago data. The South American country’s table grape production is projected to decrease by 8.6 percent to 720,000 tons, driving down exports by 8.7 percent to 555,000 tons. As for apple
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As the international food trade converged on Bangkok for Thaifex Thailand’s Commerce minister Jurin Laksanawisit said the country’s food exports were set to jump in 2023. read more

AgroFresh Solutions has expanded its offering in Brazil after with the announcement its SmartFresh InBox had been approved in the South American market. read more

Hort Connections delegates can grab a free copy of Produce Plus Winter. read more

According to Polish Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Wojciech Gerwel, his government wants to promote agricultural food exports to Indonesia during his visit to the country this week. Gerwel said his country is experiencing a deficit. Therefore, it is seeking to increase economic cooperation
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The World Potato Congress Inc. is pleased to announce that Nairobi, Kenya has been chosen as the site for its 2026 World Potato Congress. The proposed theme for this event is, “Developing Global Potato Partnerships for Enhanced Food Systems, Food Security and International Trade”. The WPC is
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AFSA revealed that after examining 19 shipments of peppers and 34 shipments of kiwis imported by Iranian companies, quarantine pests (brown fruit wrinkling virus and mulberry scale insect) were detected, respectively. read more

As part of the research project 'Modellregion Agri-Photovoltaik für Baden-Württemberg', the Kompetenzzentrum Obstbau Bodensee, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE and eleven other project partners are building and testing five Agri-PV pilot plants in Baden-Württemberg. read more

The first new New Zealand Zespri kiwis began arriving at the Belgian Port of Zeebrugge at the start of this month. Zespri had a tough 2022 with many quality issues, but they are optimistic about the future, which includes a free trade agreement between New Zealand and the EU. read more