b'NOVEMBER 21 - DECEMBER 18, 2022TEMPERATURE-CONTROLLED LOGISTICS 7Betting on berries and other healthy foodsBy Tad Thompson, AJOTIn a confused world, bet- are efficiently minimizing costs ting on the future is precarious.to keep produce affordable for But the American transporta- consumers.tionindustrymightwanttoAtthesametime,inter-studytheodds-oninterna- national producerssuch as tional shipping for fresh fruitsthose in Australia, New Zea-and vegetables. land,Chile,Spain,Holland, For a variety of good rea- Peru, and South Africadis-sons,recentyearsupwardplayedtheforesighttobuild trendsappeartobendsky- foreign markets by developing ward at an even faster pace. newproductiontechniques, USDAsU.S. Agriculturalrigidly-high quality standards Projectionsreport,publishedandmorerecentlypro-in February 2021, shows a 2019prietaryvarietiesofberries, value of $22.9 billion for freshgrapes and applesto carve fruits and vegetables importedotherwise-unlikely niches.totheU.S.ThatnumberisAlong with this, growers projectedtobe$36.6bil- havepatientlycontinuedto lionby2030.In2021,theworkwithUSDAsAnimal imported fresh produce value(BETTINGcontinued onDel Campo in Culiacan, Sinaloa, is among vegetable growers throughout the world who use the latest production was $25.1 billion. page 10) technology to ship efficient, food-safe products.(Photo courtesy of Del Campo)ConsiderthatOctobers Orlando meeting of the Interna-tional Fresh Produce Associa-tion (IFPA) attracted participants from 40 countries.DEDICATED. RELIABLE.AnchoringthetrendisBUILT TO SERVE.NorthAmericansinterest in healthy foods. This group largelyhasthewherewithal to afford to eat well. Ameri-can culinary tastes have comeFor more than 35 years, TOTE has provided reliable, farfromourgrandmotherstwice-weekly deliveries to Puerto Rico - offering a canned beans. best-in-class customer experience.U.S. produce growers have long been leaders in supply-ingtheircountrymenwith healthy fresh fruits and veg-etables. But they face climatic limitations, which swing open widedoorsforproducersin otherlatitudes.Andnow, water restrictions and severe aglaborunavailability,atop skyrocketing production costs throwanothergutpunchto American growers. While many operate tra-ditionalapple,cherryand berry farms, Canadian grow-erssubstantiallyovercame their cold weather issue with innovativetechnologyfor greenhouseandotherpro-tected production. The USDA indicatesthatCanadapro-duces 11% of the fresh pro-duce imported by the U.S. AsnotedintheAJOT article, Mexican fresh export success reflects global indus-try,Mexicoenjoysmany advantagestoprovide77% of U.S. fruit imports.Hawaiian property values longagomadeU.S.pine-apple production impractical. Almostwithoutexception, tropicalfruitsfortheU.S. market must be imported.Furthermore,imported, healthyfruitslikeberries, grapes, tree fruits, and count-lessvegetables,areserving the market from October until May, when most U.S. fields and backyard gardens are fallow. Offshore production cer-tainlyfacesrisingtranspor-tationcosts,butaggressive@TOTE_MARITIMEinvestment by steamship com- 1.877.775.7447 TOTE MARITIMEpaniesandcertainU.S.sea- TOTEMARITIME.COM TOTE_MARITIMEports to serve perishable foods'