Fruits, Vegetables & Nuts

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For every application from soups to desserts, potatoes are an essential addition to the traditional list of potential fillers, binders and extenders. Potatoes impart a neutral flavor and ideal texture to achieve a smooth, even and moist finished product.

The Global New Products Report from Innova Market Insights found that almond introductions grew in four out of the five key categories for almonds worldwide, including confectionery (22%), snacks (19%) and bakery (17%), as well as bars (16%) and cereal (8%). This growth helped almonds maintain their long-held position as the top nut in global new product introductions.

Research has shown that Concord grape juice delivers more healthy polyphenols per serving than most other popular superfruit juices. In one study[1], Concord grape juice was found to have a polyphenolic concentration of 2.6mg GAE/mL.

The importance of indulgent flavors and texture formats for chocolate confectionery continue to drive interest, and California almonds have the unique ability to enhance the flavor, texture and health factors of chocolate products. 

Consumers are generally interested in trying new and innovative fruit products, and retail fruit brands can learn what chefs are doing with fruit to identify trends, as well as opportunities for product innovation and marketing.

This year’s theme, “Ancient Inspirations,” pairs frozen DOLE® fruit as blackberry, mango, cherry and pineapple with spices, grains and ingredients from around the globe. To ensure that the dishes are approachable and appeal to a wide range of patrons, the Dole culinary team has chosen to reinvent familiar menu items with these exciting flavor combinations.

Graceland Fruit purchases Wisconsin cranberries to manufacture dried cranberries in its Frankfort, Michigan facilities. The overwhelming success of global sales of its dried cranberries has led to demand outpacing its current production capacity. The CranGrow alliance provides Graceland Fruit with increased manufacturing capacity to support its global growth plans and provides CranGrow members/growers access to worldwide markets through Graceland Fruit’s well-established sales network.  

Dennis Reid, vice president of business development, notes, “We developed this new product in response to demand and requests from several customers who had recently lost their incumbent supplier for their bacon bits. So we went to work and within 60 days we had formulated and commercialized an alternative for them.”  

New Crispy on Delivery started with extensive research focused on customer satisfaction for home fry delivery. Lamb Weston identified three key areas that can impact delivered fry quality – the product, the packaging and best practices for delivery from store to door.