The Los Mochis, Sinaloa, chili pepper deal is to begin late this November for Higueral Produce Inc.

Carlos Villa, salesman for the firm, noted this involves a full line of hot peppers.

These and Mexican mangos are the firm’s primary products, although Higueral is increasing its volume this fall for a Roma tomato deal.

Villa said his 2021 mango shipments will begin in April and finish in the first week of October.

“For the moment, we specialize in what we do. With the pandemic it’s hard to expand more,” said Villa. “We do the basics. We had projected more sales for this year, but that’s

Saladexpress, a leader in Québec’s pre-cut salad and vegetable processingindustry, announced a major $5 million investment in its Saint-Rémi factory, located on the South Shore of Montréal. After launching three new salad kits under the Florette brand in grocery stores last month, Saladexpress continues to expand its business in Québec’s food market despite the uncertainty caused by the current pandemic. Such growth reflects the good financial health of a local company that is driving innovation.

This large investment will go toward building a state-of-the-art refrigerated structure attached

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue has appointed seven members to serve the National Mango Board. The appointees include four new members and three returning members. Appointees will serve three-year terms running Jan. 1, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2023, with the exception of one domestic producer appointee whose term will begin immediately and will end Dec. 31, 2021.   

The newly appointed board members include:

• Alyssa Salome Hind, McAllen, TX – importer
• Christopher A. Ciruli, Tubac, AZ – importer
• Rod Chamberlain, Mecca, CA – domestic producer (three-year term)
• Daniel J. Lyons, Homestad, FL –

When the Tomato Suspension Agreement was finalized in November 2019, the Mexican tomato industry commenced planning for the TSA to go into effect in April 2020. This brought reduced plantings for the summer and fall Mexican tomato deal.

Then, weeks before that transition hit the industry, the entire world was impacted by the coronavirus. It was late this spring that the Mexican tomato industry took yet another hard look at its planting strategy, according to Joe Bernardi. Bernardi is president of Bernardi & Associates, a long-established broker involved in the tomato deals of Mexico

ShopRite of Hunterdon County opened its first automated micro-fulfillment center, which is designed to enhance its online ShopRite from Home service.

Located next-door to the ShopRite of Flemington, the facility will increase capacity for ShopRite from Home orders and enhance the online shopping experience for customers. The new micro-fulfillment center will assemble a portion of each online order before the order is completed at the store. The technology eases pressure on in-store teams by increasing online shopping capacity and allowing store associates to focus on personally shopping fresh

While the pandemic certainly changed the course of the year, it has not altered Stemilt’s efforts to partner with the Washington Apple Education Foundation to award students of local agriculture families scholarships to pursue their secondary education goals.

“Stemilt’s founder and my grandfather, Tom Mathison, knew how important it was to invest into the up and coming generation, so he partnered with WAEF over 25 years ago to ensure students of Stemilt employees and other ag families in the area had the opportunity to earn college degrees,” said West Mathison, Stemilt president. “Today, we