The 18th May, brought the 2017 Chinese Fruit Retail Conference (TFresh), an event which covered a wide range of topics, including new domestic and international retail trends and policies, branding strategies, new technologies, product and supply chain developments, and opportunities and challenges for fruit sellers on WeChat.
The very first Hort Connections took place in Adelaide Australia during the second week of May. The last day of the event gave visitors the opportunity to visit the South Australian Produce Market.
In Canada, the CPMA was held in Toronto on May 10 and 11 and is a show which has a reputation of being a great event to launch new products. With so many new products being presented at the event, a special for report was made just for novelties.
Mother nature continued to act up
Central and Eastern Europe was, once again, hit by frost during the first week of May, with temperatures reaching as low as 2 to 4 degrees below zero. The cold weather had most growers in the Netherlands out in the orchards trying to protect their fruits with irrigation systems.
Spain, specifically the Huelva region, was hit by heavy rains, causing huge damage to the strawberry harvest. At that point in the year, many growers would normally have withdrawn, but the cold in the rest of Europe motivated them to continue supplying the demand for this product.
South African top fruit growers were having a challenging time after a couple of seasons of drought and high temperatures left them struggling to get size and colour into the fruit.
India blocked Chinese apples
The Indian government announced a block on all imports of Chinese apples and pears, starting June the first, after a bug was discovered in a shipment of Chinese apples to the country a few weeks previously. Back in May, there wasn't too much concern about the block since exporters had finished sending their 2016-17 apple exports.
April showers bring...purple pineapples?
During the last week of May, social media was ablaze with images of purple pineapples and the question that many were asking was, if it was some kind of practical joke or late April fool's gag, but Del Monte insisted it was real.