TORONTO — At this year's Canadian Produce Marketing Association Convention and Trade Show, April 28-30, exhibitors proved that fruits and vegetables are no longer just commodities — they're stories worth telling.
From Equifruit's “Banana Badasses” of fair-trade capturing attention with P.O.S.-emblazoned boxes to Del Fresco Pure leaning into “Nonna's house” nostalgia for its 70th anniversary to Red Sun Farms relaunching its Chef's Collection tomatoes, where every variety has its own character, the booths across the show floor were alive with brands fighting for more than just shelf space; they're fighting for and winning a place in the shopper's lifestyle.
Equifruit, the Montreal-based Fairtrade International-certified banana company, debuted new shipping boxes that feature colorful and compelling P.O.S. that take the heavy lift of merchandising off the retailer's to-do list.
“We put the P.O.S. right on the boxes so retailers can merchandise our bananas and tell the fair trade story in a succinct way,” says Madison Hopper.
Equifruit has also added “Women-Owned Company” to the front side of its boxes, while staying true to its easy-to-digest fair trade messaging. The boxes say, “Why Fairtrade? Farmers gotta get paid.”
“You only have two seconds for the customer to understand they need to pay a little more to support farmers,” says Kim Chackal, of the branding it has launched in a trial at Sprouts in the mid-Atlantic. It plans to transition all packaging in Canada to the new format in the next three months.
Equifruit's dynamic booth, featuring a fun and interactive merchandising fair trade bananas video game, won the People's Choice Award at CPMA.
It's official, says Del Fresco Pure: National Cucumber Salad Day will be July 8, the day Logan Moffitt, aka the “Cucumber Guy,” first posted his shaken cucumber salad that went viral.
Moffitt made one of his signature cucumber salads at the Del Fresco Pure booth during CPMA. Marketing Manager Sonia Klinger says the greenhouse grower is planning content around the new holiday and “hopefully retailers will jump on board.”
Del Fresco Pure also featured its newly launched organic three-pack of cucumbers, called the King Pack, as well as cherry tomatoes in a top-seal pack.
All of the action took place in Del Fresco's “Welcome to Nonna's House”-themed booth. Designed to mark its 70th year of growing, the retro design won the CPMA award for Best Island Booth.
“It's a nod to our roots,” says Klinger.
Highline Mushrooms featured its new Cream of Mushroom Soup Kit. Part of its Fresh Gourmet Series, the kits blend sliced mini bella mushrooms with a seasoning packet. To make a creamy and flavorful mushroom soup, consumers simply rinse and sauté the mushrooms, add the seasoning packet and milk, heat and serve.
Red Sun Farms showcased the relaunch of its Chef's Collection, an intentionally curated mix of new tomato varieties that balance intense sweetness with a signature crunch. While most of these varieties originate from the same seed family, each was selected for its unique personality and distinct flavor profile to create a more personal consumer experience, says Red Sun's Leona Neill.
The brand also debuted innovative packaging developed with a new supplier that highlights each specific flavor personality within the mix.
The relaunch reflects Red Sun's “strategic innovation” over “commodity” approach, says Neill.
The process from seed to market aligns seed breeders, growers and retailers at the earliest stages of development to deliver a premium, intentional product to the market, she says.
Fresh from a recent strategic acquisition, GreenFruit Avocados came to CPMA to share its vision for the future.
Industry veterans Scott Bauwens, Jamie Johnson and Jim Donovan, in partnership with Spanish investment firm Tahuaycani, recently announced they have acquired 100% of GreenFruit Avocados. Under new ownership, GreenFruit will operate as a grower-packer-shipper and ripener across North and South America. The veterans say the move aims to create a vertically integrated avocado company by leveraging the group's existing ties to global sourcing and large-scale production in California and Peru.
“Between Jim, Jamie and me, we bring decades of experience on the distribution, retail and foodservice sides of the business,” says newly named GreenFruit CEO Bauwens, adding that Brian Gomez, president of sales and marketing, “brings the firepower the brand has always needed.”
Bauwens says GreenFruit is eyeing “aggressive growth in the next five years.”
KingsOne Farms, a grower for Mucci Farms, offers three-packs of greenhouse-grown romaine under the Naked Leaf brand.
“There's a lot of issues in field-grown romaine,” says Cole Mucci, which is what makes the greenhouse-grown alternative compelling. “No one has done whole head romaine in CEA [controlled environment agriculture] before.”
“Seed breeders have worked hard to imitate field-grown romaine in a greenhouse product, and I think they've done that here,” says Emily Murracas. “I think it will be a game changer — the closest to field-grown.”
Murracas says the Naked Leaf romaine is ideal for a variety of eating occasions, from salads to lettuce cups for appetizers and more.
Also on display were the brand's CuteCumber Poppers in a bowl with dip. The bowls feature bite-size cucumbers with two packs of dip.
A convenient one-bite snack that is crunchy and refreshing, these “mini” cocktail cucumbers are great for dipping and snacking at parties, says Murracas.
KingsOne also grows Boston lettuce (also known as green butter), green leaf, romaine and red butter lettuce.
At the Volm Cos. booth, Equipment Director Wayne DeCou touted top trends in produce equipment automation. He sees a significant rise in case packing as retailers shift toward rigid formats like trays and RPCs for better warehouse uniformity. Additionally, bag-to-bin solutions are growing in popularity, prompting equipment vendors to invest in more versatile conventional and robotic palletizing options. The industry is also embracing artificial intelligence, he says, exemplified by partnerships that integrate AI with advanced camera technology for more precise optical grading and sorting.
DeCou also took The Packer through the latest in grading technology, which improves quality and increases labor productivity through AI-driven software and camera recognition, he says. The machine can be trained to do its job more consistently.
“The challenge that packers have is that quality control slows the whole line down,” says DeCou. With automation, specs can be set per customer, time of year, SKU, customer demand, etc., all while eliminating the need to train people to do the job.
“It's not about replacing people but rather about repurposing them to other necessary roles,” he says.
DeCou says that in the U.S., the largest retailers are automating their distribution centers. Packing and palletized loads are moving to automation and, as a result, everything must meet precise specs.
“The ease of packing and palletizing are huge drivers for us,” says DeCou, who adds that Volm offers a portfolio of case-packing machines for everything from potatoes to apples to onions and more.
The team at Pure Flavor showed off its flavorful, greenhouse-grown tomatoes in a host of vibrant colors.
“Rocco Reds are continuing to do well at retail,” says Julia Weber. “We see strong results. It's everyone's favorite tomato. If I had to pick one tomato to bring home, it's this one.”
Pure Flavor also spolighted its Cherry Picked Medley, “featuring three of our very best cherry tomatoes,” says Weber. The medley includes Azuca sweet red cherry, Tiki tomatoes with tropical sweetness, and OMG tomatoes.
“It's always the same three tomatoes,” says Weber. She says that means “great-tasting tomatoes and consistency” every time.
“The medley category has grown, and so has consumer expectation from each tomato,” she says.
The Pure Flavor booth also showcased its new, simplified branding.
“Simple is good,” says Weber. “Consumers are time-pressed. They want to pick healthy foods, but for a number of reasons, haven't always been able to.”
She says some produce branding and packaging can be so colorful that it ultimately overshadows the product itself.
“What gets lost is the product,” she says. “Our new branding ensures the product displays beautifully in the package. The produce is the star.”
Jeff Richardson of Great Lakes Greenhouses highlighted a successful but demanding season, noting the greenhouse grower's organic bell pepper harvest is set to begin just as environmental issues shorten Mexico's season.
Despite a challenging spring marked by frost advisories and low temperatures, the greenhouse uses LED lighting to ensure slow, high-quality ripening in Great Lakes' 28 acres of organic and 90 acres of conventional crops.
Richardson also emphasized Great Lakes' intensive in-house beneficial insect program, which uses dedicated spotters to manage aphids without sprays.
“Bell peppers are a tough crop, and you can lose it quickly,” says Richardson. “Through our in-house, beneficial insect program, we breed our own insects because you can't spray with organic. It's laborious, but when you do get it right; it's wonderful. The last two years have been phenomenal.”
Mastronardi Produce took home the CPMA Packaging Innovation Award for its Sunset Tomato Branch. Mastronardi's Amanda Orr says the triangular package is designed to mimic the natural branching structure of vine tomatoes and is fully recyclable.
“The Tomato Branch packaging really elevates the produce and makes it a showpiece,” says Orr, who notes the highly flavorful tomatoes on the vine work for everything from snacking to salads to charcuterie boards and more.
The company also featured its Pop Its cucumber bites, which launched at retail this winter and “are still generating a lot of buzz,” she says.
At the Oppy booth, the team highlighted its exciting new partnership with Sumo Citrus, a brand that has seen explosive growth thanks to its instant appeal and viral presence on TikTok and the “Today” show.
To ensure consistent quality during the long transit from the Sumo Citrus Australian farm — located three hours from Melbourne — Oppy leverages its robust fresh produce supply chain infrastructure to get the product to shelves efficiently, fresh and flavorful, says Greg Asta, representing Sumo Citrus in Australia.
“No other citrus product can command the retail space of Sumo Citrus,” says Asta.
Partnering with in-demand produce brands on a global scale is not new for Oppy, which has established expertise with brands like Zespri and Dole, says Oppy's Steve Young.
“And we know citrus well,” says Young. “This is not something new for us. We understand where the fruit comes from.”
Young says it makes Oppy the ideal partner to manage the complex logistics of this high-demand fruit.
The program focuses on meeting exacting specifications and using Brix testing to guarantee the signature sweetness and flavor that is currently redefining the citrus category.
Oppy's Sumo Citrus program will launch in Canada and has legs even as the summer produce is still on shelves in North American produce aisles, says Young.
“It's changing the citrus category,” say Young. “In the U.S. in the summer, citrus doesn't automatically come to mind, but consumers are still really excited for Sumo Citrus.”
At the recent Viva Fresh Expo in San Antonio, Topline Farms' Dino DiLaudo described the “perfect storm” that led to a surge in tomato prices. At last week's CPMA show, DiLaudo said that while “tomato prices are leveling off and calming down,” they're “still higher than historical levels.”
What's helped is retailers pulling back on tomato promotions and Florida and other Southern states heading into tomato season.
“Retailers started to slow down with suppliers telling them not to go on promotion. You don't want to drive demand with limited availability,” DiLaudo told The Packer at CPMA. “Everyone took their foot off the gas.
“And now Florida is coming back into production, and the local season from Georgia to Arkansas to the Carolinas and on up to [New] Jersey — which has a strong local presence — has taken pressure off. Hopefully, we get back to normal tomato pricing soon,” he adds.
New Zealand Avocado has been a grower of avocados in New Zealand for a long time, says Brad Siebert. It's also been active in Canada for the last few years but sells a lot of fruit to Asia.
The first-time exhibitor at the CPMA show aimed to “use [the event] as a platform to get word out that New Zealand Avocado has avocados to export to Canada,” says Siebert.
The team at New Zealand Avocado said it takes three weeks to ship from New Zealand to British Columbia. New Zealand Avocado is also exploring entering via Philadelphia and then hitting the road to get its avocados to markets in Toronto and Montreal.
