Although total crop yield may be down 10 percent or so, Colorado potato marketers are not trimming their efforts and in fact have voted to allocate additional support to help shippers sell more. "In addition to our merchandising effort with retailers, we are also devoting part of our budget toward more category research and tools to help our local shippers," Linda Weyers, administrator of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee, said in a statement. In a meeting held last summer, CPAC's marketing committee voted to focus retail efforts on core customers, or chains in regions where

IRVINE, CA -- "We have been having a lot of fun with this year's campaign. It is the most integrated approach we have taken to marketing," said Jan DeLyser, vice president of marketing for the California Avocado Commission, here. The common theme running through all the commission's marketing programs this year, including consumer advertising, public relations, and retail and foodservice programs, is "Irresistible California Avocados." Components of the integrated campaign include an on-line consumer sweepstakes challenge, outdoor advertising, radio consumer advertising with retail tags

The Canadian Produce Marketing Assiociation announced that the new version of its food guide, Health Canada, has placed vegetables and fruits on the higher tier of the rainbow and has emphasized their significant place in a healthy diet. Building on this, CPMA and its health partners, the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society, will be launching the 2007 5 to10 A Day campaign titled "My Fruit & Veggies." The campaign will include billboards in the Toronto area as well as brochures, posters and TV public- service announcements beginning in March. "My Fruit & Veggies

VIENNA, VA -- The National Apple Month program has announced the winners of the fall 2006 National Apple Month retail and military display contests, bringing the apple industry's fall generic apple promotion to a close. The annual contest, which kick-starts the domestic apple industry's marketing season, provided retailers and the apple industry with increased sales and gave consumers easy access to great-tasting, healthy apples. "The high-quality apples available nationwide from the 2006 harvest, combined with the creativity of produce managers in creating the displays, made this year's

It might be at least another year before the produce industry sees big gains in the use of radio frequency identification, according to two industry executives closely in tune with the situation. Bob Spence, vice president of business development for Pacific Tomato Growers Inc. in Wimauma, FL, is chairman of the Produce Marketing Association's RFID Issues Committee. Both he and PMA's RFID expert Gary Fleming agreed that 2007 appears to be a year with more testing and evaluation of the technology rather than implemention even by the industry's most progressive companies. In separate interviews

SANTA CLARA, CA -- A couple of Silicon Valley-based high-tech companies are developing diagnostic tools for the purpose of detecting deadly pathogens in food supplies. NanoSensors Inc., a nanotechnology development company based here, is licensing nanoporous silicon-based biosensor technology through Michigan State University and a university in South Korea to develop food-safety analysis systems. In addition to silicon-based filters, NanoSensors is also using carbon nanotube technology to detect and isolate biologically based pathogens. Carbon nanotubes are cylindrical carbon molecules with