The Florida Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association wrapped up its annual conference yesterday in Naples. As W-G-C-U’s Valerie Alker reports the industry is preparing a new marketing campaign.

It’s called “Fruits and Veggies, More Matters” and the campaign targets Generation X Moms. Ray Gilmer of the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association says parents already know they’re an important part of a healthy diet. The ad campaign serves up strategies for getting the healthy foods on the daily menu.

“Fruits and vegetables in their fresh form certainly is the first choice, but all forms matter, fresh frozen canned even juice can be an excellent way of reaching those recommended goals of eating more fruits and vegetables every day”.

The marketing campaign will be launched in March. While in Naples the fruit and vegetable growers also talked about how to make the Federal Farm Bill friendlier to Florida Agriculture and how to deal with a looming labor shortage.

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Florida is NOT one of the states that has confirmed cases of E-coli from bagged spinach. And the outbreak poses no immediate problem to the state’s growers. But it was a topic of conversation at the week’s annual meeting of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable growers association in Naples. Roy Gilmer is the Association’s director. He says right now there’s no harvesting going on.

“We don’t have any product. but we’re working with the fda to make sure what ever systems they say may see necessary to keep this from happening again can be put into place.”

Most of the bagged spinach comes from California, but Gilmer says during the winter season the Belle Glade area in South Florida is also a producer. Florida leads the nation in citrus production. It’s also a leading grower of tomatoes, green peppers, snap beans, potatoes and sweet corn.