PMA Fresh Summit Recap

Excerpts from a 10/20/10 article in The Packer written by Doug Ohlemeier

A record 3,938 retail and foodservice buyers walked the floors of the Orange County Convention Center in the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit 2010, up from 3,633 in 2009 and the 3,842 that visited the Orlando show in 2008.

Fresh Summit drew 18,284 participants, beating the previous East Coast record attendance of 17,503 in 2008, the last time the convention was held in the Sunshine State.

“There is a lot of energy and excitement on the floor,” said Garry Bergstrom, business development director of produce and floral for Publix Super Markets Inc., Lakeland. “People seem to be more upbeat. They’re not talking about the economy as much as they did two years ago. There’s more optimism.”

Last year’s confab in Anaheim, Calif., set the convention’s attendance record of 19,060.

From one end of the convention hall to the other, buyers from major retail chains and foodservice and wholesale operations visited produce suppliers and others in the show’s 950 exhibitors, up from last year’s more than 800 exhibitors.

How to pick a fresh coconut

Choosing a good coconut: Feel the weight of the coconut. It should feel heavy for its size. Shake vigorously. You should hear a pronounced sloshing sound. You are looking for the maximum amount of juice, it should feel like there is at least a cup of liquid inside moving around freely.


Coconuts have three eyes. Look at the 'soft eye'. The 'soft eye' is the eye that doesn't have the shell slightly raised round one side of it. You can also tell by finding the three "stripes" on the shell. These stripes come together between the three eyes. The angle between the two stripes closest to the soft eye is much wider than the other two angles. Once you find the 'soft eye' check it for any discoloration, it should look clean.


Overall the coconut should look brown without any gray overtone. Check the overall fruit for any signs of staining where there might have been a fracture allowing moisture to seep out. "


Opening the coconut: Using a hammer and a screwdriver, pierce one of the three soft eyes on the coconut shell. Drain off the juice. If saving the juice, strain it to remove any flecks of shell.
Wrap the coconut in a towel. If you've bought a Groovy Coconut, use the hammer and the screwdriver to open the shell. The shell should loosen and break into pieces. 


Pick out the white flesh. The dark skin can be taken off with a vegetable peeler. To make it easier to free the white flesh from its shell, toast the coconut in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Series of tropical storms tests endurance of Brooks' papaya crops

10/1/2010 Produce News article written by Christina DiMartino

The nearly continual daisy-chain of tropical weather systems that has moved across the Atlantic Ocean this summer has held Central American producers at full attention.

Tropical Storm Alex hit central Belize June 27, bringing severe thunderstorms and winds of 40-60 mph.

Tropical Storm Karl hit northern Belize Sept. 15, delivering severe thunderstorms and winds of 40-60 mph. Karl later turned into a Category 3 hurricane before hitting Veracruz, Mexico.

Most recently, Tropical Storm Mathew hit southern Belize Sept. 25, bringing severe thunderstorms and winds of 40-50 mph.

Brooks Tropicals LLC, headquartered in Homestead, FL, grows its papayas in Belize. The elegant papaya trees are long and lanky, with the heavy fruit growing at the tops of the thin trunks. A strong storm cannot only tear the fruit from the trees, it also can cause the tops of the trees to snap completely off.

"A direct hit from any of these storms would have set our papaya production back months," Bill Brindle, vice president of sales for Brooks Tropicals, told The Produce News. “Fortunately we were only partially hit, with the worst damage coming from Tropical Storm Karl. Karl knocked down several of our fields up near the Mexican border. Flooding and wind from all three storms caused tree losses throughout the entire Belize growing region.”

Officially, the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, but the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory points out that there is nothing magical in these dates. Hurricanes and tropical storms have occasionally occurred outside this six-month period, but the timeline was chosen because it is when over 97 percent of tropical storm activity has been recorded throughout storm-tracking history.

Mary Ostlund, director of marketing for Brooks Tropicals, added, “We have definitely had our share of severe tropical weather. Now that it has passed, we can focus on getting production back to normal.

“We plant new papaya fields every month,” she continued. “And we are looking forward to some of those new fields coming on line to replace acreage lost to the tropical storms this year.”

Papaya supplies recover from cold-caused shortages

Excerpts from an article in the 9/16/10 The Packer by Doug Ohlemeier

Stung by unexpected colder weather, papaya volume declined considerably during the spring and early summer.

In early August, grower-shippers say volume has been returning to normal.

In Belize, temperatures in January and February fell into the 50s and 60s.

Though not freezing conditions, those temperatures can stunt plant growth.

The plants, however, began recovering in June and supplies have begun returning to normal, said Mary Ostlund, director of marketing for Brooks Tropicals Inc., Homestead, Fla.

Courtesy Brooks Tropicals

Though papaya volume declined considerably during the spring and early summer, volume by early August was beginning to return to nomal, shippers say.

“Retailers need wait no longer for promotional opportunities on papayas,” she said in late August. “Our volumes were much lower than expected through June. Now that weather patterns are back to normal, we are starting to see normal papaya production.”

Though Belize growers produce papaya throughout the year, volume surges in the hotter months, when papaya thrives, Ostlund said.

As most plantings occur in June, July and August, Brooks has been able to project volumes throughout the year by coordinating plantings to bring less cyclical volumes to market, she said.

Brooks expects to ship 2 million 32-pound cartons of papayas this season.

Brooks sees papaya demand increasing.

“We think quality makes the demand increase, especially for papaya,” Ostlund said. “The overall demand in the general consumer market is increasing as the Latino and Asian markets are remaining relatively steady. If papaya had a P.R. agent, we would hire him. It’s a great talked-about fruit.”

Once consumers overcome the initial hurdle of deciding how to experience a new fruit, Ostlund said they test the waters and consider ways to include fruit such as papaya in meals.

She said papaya isn’t like an ingredient in a recipe where one can add too much or too little of the item.

Ostlund said papaya is amenable to many recipes as shoppers can add as many chunks of papaya they like.

Brooks markets its papayas under its Caribbean Red and Caribbean Sunrise labels.

Brooks’ ships papayas in redesigned box

Excerpt from an article in the 9/16/10 The Packer by Doug Ohlemeier

Brooks Tropicals Inc., Homestead, Fla., has switched to shipping its Caribbean red papayas in a new type of box.

Since January, Brooks has been increasing the packing of its fruit in the box that Mary Ostlund, director of marketing, calls a corner post box.

Replacing a former carton Brooks used that wasn’t as display ready, the new container has a shorter top and graphics, Ostlund said.

“For the past six months, the box has gone through a trial period where we tested its stability and rigidity,” she said. “Designing a papaya box isn’t easy. Papayas love humidity while cardboard doesn’t.”

Brooks had machinery built to the company’s specifications to construct a box that provides optimal fruit protection while giving papayas the humid environment, Ostlund said.

She said Brooks has received strong retailer feedback on the packs.

Besides its Belize papayas, Brooks is a leading grower, packer and shipper of south Florida avocados and starfruit, Mexican limes, Jamaican Uniq fruit and ships smaller volumes of other tropicals.

September is Papaya month

So says the German chocolate company chocri (they spell it lower case), and who are we to argue!

If you go to the chocri website you can customize your own chocolate bar. Choose a base chocolate (white, dark or milk chocolate) and your favorite toppings (over 100 to choose from). Dried papaya is one of them. The bars are hand-made in Germany and then shipped to you.

Here's a screen capture of their papaya topping.

New tradeshow banners

Brooks Tropicals goes to several tradeshows and travels to a number of food shows during the year.

Sometimes the space we're given at these different shows won't allow our large PMA booth nor our mid-sized booth. That's where these banners come in. 40 inches wide, 8 feet tall, these banners can fit into any small sized booth, and they're quick and easy to set-up too!

These banners will do double duty for customer visits. With such eye-catching graphics, our visiting customers might actually, perhaps for a moment or two, imagine a red carpet below their feet.