The Canadian Produce Marketing Association names Ontario Senator Rob Black as 2021 Produce Champion for his efforts bringing industry issues to the forefront on Parliament Hill.

Retail Navigator columnist Peter Chapman explains there’s more to growing and packing produce. To maximize the opportunity, understand your customers and find the right shelf.

Amanda Dooney, farm manager for Suncrest Orchards, shares the challenges of a pandemic year and how she’s making life better for Jamaican temporary foreign workers thinning apples near Simcoe, Ontario. She’s promised new bunkhouse quarters in time for harvest 2021.

So far, horticulture has been spared the outbreaks that plagued the sector in the earlier days of this pandemic. Columnist Bill George is happy for a pause to concentrate on his grape vineyards before contemplating what comes next.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled that Mexican raspberries are not a trade threat to the Washington state processed raspberry market. Neither is Canada’s small raspberry sector, concentrated near Abbotsford, British Columbia. The final report contains a chapter of insightful statistical analysis of fresh and frozen markets in Canada.

Dalbir Benipal is the new chair of the BC Blueberry Council, representing 600 growers in the province. He’s the first Indo-Canadian to be elected to the role.

Amanda Dooney shares with The Grower how stable accommodations and accommodating change have kept temporary foreign workers happy and safe during the pandemic.

Larry McIntosh, recently retired as president and CEO of Peak of the Market for 27 years, is this year’s winner of the Canadian Produce Person of the Year. A virtual event is to be held July 21, 2021 when Tom Karst, editor of The Packer and Ron Lemaire, president of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association present the award.

Lisa Thompson, representing the rural riding of Huron-Bruce, becomes the new Ontario minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs. She’s been a MPP since 2011.

A Manitoba household name, Peak of the Market, has appointed a new CEO to carry forward the marketing strategies for more than 100 different varieties of locally grown produce. She’s Pamela Kolochuk, most recently the company’s chief financial officer.