A pair of premium melons in Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido fetched 3.5 million yen ($25,000) at the year's first auction. This is the event's second highest bid on record. The bid for the melons - grown in the city of Yubari - exceeded the previous year's by 500,000 yen, but failed to
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The hot weather is starting to make itself felt and summer fruit is pawing the market in Bologna. The supply of melons, however, is still surplus to demand. Apricots are also already present in significant quantities, but the quality is not excellent. Little attractive produce at the moment for
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“As they say in real estate, this could be a seller's market for a while.” So says Dante Galeazzi, CEO/president of the Texas International Fresh Produce Association of the onion market right now. read more

Almost 600 members of the global banana business gathered in Miami this week for the IXth International Banana Congress organised by the National Banana Corporation of Costa Rica (Corbana). read more

The optimisation of South Africa’s rail system has been identified as a key enabler if the country’s citrus industry is to realise its vision of exporting 260m cartons of the fruit by 2032. read more

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