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Produce Show Daily Friday, October 14, 2016 1 2 DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR PRODUCE DEPARTMENT WITH MICHIGAN APPLES Michigan Apple Committee can help drive consumer traffic to your produce department. It will work with you to build a custom marketing plan that fits with your existing programs and goals. Michigan Apples are available nearly year-round, and MAC is always ready to develop fresh marketing plans for new retailers. Meal tips, demonstra- tions and samplings can help put prod- uct in shopping carts and keep cus- tomers returning for the resources and information they want. MAC can help you engage with consumers and increase excitement in your produce department in a number of ways. In 2015, Michigan Apple growers harvested approximately 24 million bushels (1.008 billion pounds) to be sold nation-wide. Fresh apples are typically shipped from mid-August until June, thanks to controlled atmosphere storage. Michigan offers more than 16 varieties of commercially available apples, with some of the most popular being Honeycrisp, Gala, Empire, Fuji, McIntosh, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Jonagold. The Michigan Apple industry uses environmentally friendly practices all along the supply chain, including using recyclable materials, composting and lighting and cooling meth- ods. Growers, packers and shippers are audited for food safety practices by the United States Department of Agriculture and third-party auditors. Consumer research shows that shop- pers believe Michigan Apples are fresher and taste better than the same varieties grown elsewhere. Focus group partici- pants say Michigan Apples are sweet, tart, crisp, juicy, crunchy and have great flavor. Let the Michigan Apple Committee create a custom Michigan Apple mar- keting program for you. It can partici- pate in circular ads and loyalty pro- grams and will provide custom signage. Your customers will be eager to submit their Michigan Apple recipes to its amateur recipe con- test and stay connected through social media. The company is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, constantly working to boost consumer knowledge and advertise the benefits of Michigan Apples in order to maximize sales. Its website is built to be very user friendly, and provides con- sumers with recipes, usage charts, health benefits, and most importantly, where to find their nearest Michigan Apple retailer. Visit Michigan Apple Committee at booth #2735. For more information, go to www.michiganapples.com. ORGANIC FRESH POTATOES FROM FARM FRESH DIRECT Farm Fresh Direct started in 1999 in Monte Vista, Colorado as a partnership of multi-generational family potato farms located throughout Colorado that were dedicated to growing fresh, healthy and delicious food. The farms realized they had to work together to provide year round supply and compete in today's fast changing retail, foodservice and con- sumer environment. As careful stewards of the land, Farm Fresh Direct fields have nourished families for more than three generations. Chances are, its provided for your family, too. In a short 17 years, it never imagined it would become one of the largest pota- to providers in the U.S., and now it's working with growers beyond Colorado and has become the largest grower owned shipper of fresh potatoes. The company is proud it has grown this way, and it's still growing strong by responding to today's ever changing con- sumers and their need for con- venience. Farm Fresh Direct was the first to introduce the individually wrapped microwave potato, and is still No. 1, and it has expanded the Express Bake™ convenience line to include trays and sweet potatoes. Several years ago, it also saw the trend for organics and began an aggressive plan for certifying its land and plants. Today the company is one of the largest growers of organic fresh potatoes in the U.S. Farm Fresh Direct improves its products and practices in numer- ous ways, and one is by listening to you. It welcomes all com- ments and feedback and is dedicated to making the world and its products better for you and your customers. Visit Farm Fresh Direct at booth #461. For more information, call 719.852.2600 or go to www.farmfreshdirect.net. LACERTA EXPANDS TO SUPPORT CUSTOMER GROWTH, KEEP COMPETITIVE EDGE Lacerta Group took 2016 to expand and add equipment to support its customers and continue to be in the forefront of innovative packaging. With every step of expansion, the company's customers are in the forefront of the decision making. It is important for Lacerta to invest in tech- nology that will provide a competitive advantage to its customers. Lacerta started off the year by adding another 55,000 square foot facili- ty down the road to the existing 130,000 square feet. The added space will hold the new PET extrusion line, which is due in later this year. Adding an extrusion line made perfect sense for Lacerta to maintain flexibility for its customers and to meet high demands. With the new machine, Lacerta will be able to produce its own plastic sheet and improve lead times. The extrusion line will also pro- vide more unique material options for Lacerta's customers. Throughout the year, Lacerta also invested in robots on all of the production equipment to improve efficiencies. As labor costs have increased, those costs will not be passed on to the customer. "We're expanding and investing to meet our customer requirements and to be able to keep our edge in the market. We always want to be able to provide our customers with the best service and innovative designs," said President Ali Lotfi. Another part of Lacerta's technology initiative has been investing in two additional thermo- formers and a large CNC machine. Lacerta specializes in custom packag- ing and has designers and eight CNC machines in house. This ninth machine will improve mold-making capabilities and lead time. "A lot of our business is custom packaging, from concept and design to prototyping and production. We are able to get our customers to market much faster than our competitors and at low capital investment; that's an advantage we never want to give up," said Lotfi. Looking to 2017, Lacerta has plans to continue to invest by adding three more thermoform- ers, another extru- sion line and an additional 75,000 square feet of space to accommodate the new machinery. About Lacerta Group, Inc. Lacerta Group is a family-owned busi- ness, founded in 1993, specializing in thermoformed packaging. Lacerta pro- duces stock and custom food packaging with a primary focus on fresh prepared foods. With a full design team and in- house mold-making capabilities, Lacerta provides custom packages from design and material selection to molds and pro- duction. Visit Lacerta at booth #889. For more information, go to www.lacerta.com, call 508.339.3312 or email sales@lacerta.com. DAUMAR LEADS IN PACKAGING PRODUCTS DAUMAR is a leading manufacturer and distributor to the fresh produce industry, providing packaging materials, knitted net- ting, extruded netting, printed labels, print- ed films and automatic bagging machinery. With three distribution and service ware- houses around the U.S.A., the company has customers covered with quick delivery and machine service. DAUMAR under- stands that its customers' bagging machines are critical to their business suc- cess. Because of this, unparalleled techni- cal training, superb support and spare parts availability is immediately available for all DAUMAR products. The company takes pride in its D- Pack, a stand-up bag that offers great publicity and a premium appearance. It also has an E-Pack option, with the light- est and most economical net bag for the fresh produce industry. The E-Pack is made of ultralight knitted netting and a printed film that seals both ends of the bag and acts as a carry handle. Other packaging products are the Header Bag, which is made out of knitted or extruded netting with a sealed card on one side and a Kwik Lok closure on the other side. The Clipped Net Bag, the traditional low cost bag, has a label and two metal clips. The Raschel bag is an inexpensive way to move large bags or sacks, with weights ranging from 10 pounds up to 50 pounds. DAUMAR is launching a new bag- ging machine, CB-148, this year. The CB-148 is the fastest and most flexible D-Pack bagging machine on the market. DAUMAR manufactures the bag- ging machinery and all of the correspon- ding bagging materials needed to make the bags on the bagging machinery, such as knitted netting, extruded netting, labels and printed films. DAUMAR's customers in the fresh produce industry consist of growers, packers and repackers. The company takes pride in providing maxi- mum machine uptime because it is an expert in determining which materials work best for each customer's applica- tion. In addition, the company also stocks bagging materials and has service techni- cians residing in close proximity to cus- tomers, offering a quick response to the customer's needs. Visit DAUMAR at booth #3155. For more information, go to www.daumar.com or call 305.234.5668.