Economy Produce & Veg Co. Inc. added industry veteran Adam Silverman as its executive vice president recently, but that’s not the only noteworthy change at the Cleveland-based company.

“There’s a lot of excitement in the air and so much going on here,” said Silverman, who is spearheading the company’s supply chain, distribution and operation departments. “The Economy Produce wholesale market mentality is somewhat gone, so our distribution has become much larger.”

For instance, the company now goes to the east and southeast markets, and farther into the Midwest.

“Our footprint has changed

KT Produce, a produce distribution company based out of Lowell, AR, joined FreshEdge, a family of best-in-class fresh food distribution companies backed by Wind Point Partners.

With a long family history in the produce business where customer service was always key, Chris Thompson chose to continue the family legacy by founding his own company, Kimball & Thompson Produce in 2005. Remaining committed to the same level of customer service today, KT Produce provides premium-quality fruits and vegetables to a vast assortment of foodservice establishments, including restaurants, schools, hotels

The online grocery market posted $8.1 billion in total monthly sales for November, up 5.2 percent compared to last year’s $7.7 billion, according to the monthly Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey. While all three eGrocery receiving methods contributed to the year-over-year sales growth, delivery reported the largest gain driven by a significant jump in its monthly users versus the prior year. Also during November, mass retailers surpassed supermarkets to become the primary retail format that most households relied on for their grocery purchases during the month, whether online

The amount of data available concerning consumers' retail produce buying habits now rivals that of consumer packaged goods, and produce companies should be taking advantage of that fact.

That was the big takeaway from an hour-long International Fresh Produce Association virtual town hall presentation on Dec. 13 by Jonna Parker of Circana, which is the rebranded name of the company that resulted from the 2022 merging of IRI and NPD. Circana bills itself as the leading advisor on the complexity of consumer behavior.

Parker said the most important two things a produce company should do to drive

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has imposed sanctions on three produce businesses — West Pacific Orchard LLC, Always Fresco LLC and AAA American Select Produce LLC — for failing to meet contractual obligations to the sellers of produce they purchased and failing to pay reparation awards issued under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. These sanctions include suspending the businesses’ PACA licenses and barring the principal operators of the businesses from engaging in PACA-licensed business or other activities without approval from USDA.

The following businesses and individuals

The fifth Eastern Produce Council Leadership Class finished an informative 2023 educational program with a robust schedule of events at the New York Produce Show and Conference in New York City Dec. 5-7.

“Attending the show and conference provides unique industry support, mentorship and networking for the members of our leadership class,” said Theresa Lowden, president of the EPC and executive vice president of produce and floral at JOH.

The group’s activities began at the NYPS Cornell University Future Leaders In Produce Foundational Excellence event, a career-building program providing an