As spring's chill and warmth stop and start, calling for the intense sunniness of summer, we churn along in our social media mayhem.
No matter what season, there's no shortage of this product.
Social media gives us what we need (and don't need, that's for sure) year-round, from spotlighting overlooked communities in the produce world to alerting us to weird viral recipes using fresh produce.
Despite labor being a hot-button, critical issue, we don't often name the thousands of people who literally have their boots on the ground.
We love that @western_growers posted five farmworker portraits and actually named the five photographed workers who harvest fruits and vegetables: Misael Mazaba Toto at Houweling's Group Tomatoes, Ana Apolinar (pictured) at HMC Farms, Daniel Castaneda at Live Oak Farms, Anna at Strohauer Farms and Jose Antonio Cruz Cruz at Tasteful Selections. Each employee is quoted, too.
“I've worked in packing houses before, but I have come to realize that I enjoy working in open spaces with fresh air and amicable coworkers,” Apolinar said in the post.
Kudos to Western Growers, which represents local and regional family farmers growing fresh produce in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico.
Find them on Instagram at @western_growers.
If social media is all about self-promotion (and it really is), then here goes.
The Packer's editors have been covering more and more indoor-agriculture news the last few years, watching what seemed like a cool techy concept become a huge large, commercial scale reality.
How are the companies involved in this sector of agriculture collaborating to make this growth possible? We have so many questions. And The Packer's Northeast editor Amy Sowder will get to ask some of those questions during the virtual June 24-25 Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit.
In this session, the leaders providing the answers will be Rick Vanzura, CEO of Freight Farms; Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots; Bill Bien, CEO of Agriculture at Signify; and Shawn Peterson, director at ProAgrica.
Register or learn more at indooragtechnyc.com.
Find them on LinkedIn at “Indoor AgTech.”
While scrolling the ol' book of faces, three words caused a finger to pause and then reverse-scroll: Apple. Pie. Smoothie.
The artistic photography is beautiful, yes, but it was the recipe that stirred something up in our bellies.
The company, based in Yakima, Wash., is known for its Autumn Glory branded apple variety, which is supposed to taste a bit like apple cider, evoking fall nostalgia like apple picking and family wagon rides.
Besides urging viewers to click on the Superfresh Growers website link for the recipe to make this dream a reality, the company offers another incentive: a chance to win the blender of all blenders.
All hail the Vitamix.
Find them on Facebook at @superfreshgrowers.
Now this infographic really grabbed our eyeballs.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service created this infographic showing how much of our country's food dollar goes to the foodservice industry … in 2019.
Oh, the Before Times.
What we'd really love to see is this dollar compared to the 2020 dollar — and after this year is over, the 2021 dollar.
We bet it's not 38.5 cents these days.
Thoughts about how much of the money Americans spend goes to producing the food, processing, packaging, transporting and wholesaling it? Do share.
Find them on Twitter at @USDA_ERS.
TikTok
With more than 4 million views, 127,000 likes and 13,500 comments, this guy, self-dubbed the Egg King, made a great first TikTok post.
Did you have visceral reaction when you first saw the photo?
Well, we did. Mr. Egg King insists — absolutely insists!— French's yellow mustard is wonderful on fresh watermelon.
“Trust me on this. It is so good,” he says. “It's so tangy and so vinegary and it matches so well with the watermelon's sweet juiciness.”
The reel went viral after hip hop artist, musician and singer Lizzo tried it on her TikTok account. Her review: “I don't understand…Huh?”
Find him on TikTok at @yayayayummy.