Peru remains a serious origin for IQF fruit programs—and the U.S. import record is a helpful reality check on how that supply is actually moving. When you look at recent shipment patterns for frozen/IQF mango and frozen/IQF strawberries, the headline isn’t “more” or “less.” It’s who is moving product, who is buying it, and what …
Depression-Era “Stretch Cooking” Is Back
The latest nostalgia cycle isn’t about fun throwbacks. It’s about function. With household budgets under strain in 2026, familiar “make it work” behaviors are resurfacing—stretching proteins, leaning on pantry-style builds, and rethinking what a “meal” looks like. For manufacturers and operators, the opportunity isn’t to romanticize the 1930s. It’s to design products that help people …
IQF Banana as a “Quiet Fix” Ingredient
Banana is one of those ingredients that shows up everywhere—smoothies, ice cream, baked goods, bars, fillings, even snack coatings. And yet it’s also one of the easiest to underestimate from an operations standpoint. Fresh fruit swings in ripeness, texture, and yield. Prep is messy. And once you scale, “good enough” becomes hard to repeat batch …
The Spring Grape Has Entered Its “Flavor Era”
If you’ve ever grabbed a clamshell of early-season grapes in April, you know the deal: sometimes they’re snappy and sweet, sometimes they’re… fine. Not bad. Just not the kind of grape that makes you pause mid-chew and think, oh wow, that’s a grape. For 2026, the grape industry seems determined to fix that. The big …
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A Spaceflight Shoutout for the Most Reliable Ingredient: Fruit Jam
When astronauts come home, they don’t dream about novelty. They dream about something that tastes like Earth—something unpretentious, familiar, and a little irrational in the way comfort foods tend to be. That’s why the most endearing detail in Fortune’s recent Artemis II coverage isn’t what the crew ate in space—it’s what they asked for after …
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India’s 2026 Mango Season Is Turning Into a “Processing Later” Year
Early orchard conditions across India’s key mango belts looked unusually strong heading into the 2026 season. But mid-season weather swings have shifted the outlook fast—especially for processors and manufacturers relying on consistent mango inputs. What started as a promising year is now shaping up to be more competitive, more timing-sensitive, and more dependent on later …
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National Mango Board Launches “Cinco de Mango” Campaign and Highlights New Research
As mango availability ramps up for the spring and early-summer stretch, the National Mango Board is rolling out a new seasonal push designed to keep mango top-of-mind during a high-traffic moment for fresh produce. The initiative pairs a “Cinco de Mango” consumer campaign with newly shared research, reinforcing mango’s role in everyday eating occasions and …
Fuel Costs Are Reshaping Produce Logistics
Fuel has always been a quiet line item in produce. When it swings sharply upward, it stops being quiet—and starts reshaping sourcing decisions, freight behavior, and even what reliably makes it to the shelf or production floor. The produce industry is feeling these increases from end to end: field operations, packing, labor movement, inbound inputs, …
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