IFPA 2022 Year in Review
IFPA is a member-driven association that advances the fresh produce and floral industries.
Our Association Our Members
IFPA, born from the strong legacies of United Fresh and PMA, strives for a vibrant future for all by growing prosperity for the world of fruits, vegetables, and floral. The global association is led by members, for members. More than 1,200 volunteer leaders serve on boards of directors, councils, committees, and ad hoc groups. Every company with a place in the produce or floral industries has a place in IFPA.
Our Members
Global
IFPA hosted events on five continents so attendees could learn and share information about market trends and global challenges and opportunities. In 2022, IFPA offered robust resources in those areas and collaborated with like-minded organizations to raise the profile of the produce and floral industries.
Retail
Buyers, suppliers, and solutions providers connected at The Retail Conference and The Global Produce & Floral Show. We discovered business-building information year-round through the IFPA retail newsletter, performance/sales statistics, insights on consumer trends, and business impacts (e.g., inflation, sustainability, packaging).
Foodservice
Foodservice operators, distributors, and K-12 school foodservice professionals met suppliers and solutions providers at The Foodservice Conference, The Global Produce & Floral Show, and more. Throughout 2022, we gathered insights from IFPA research and resources on consumer perspectives, menu innovations, and food waste challenges.
Floral
From The Floral Conferences (Anaheim and Miami) to The Global Produce & Floral Show, buyers, suppliers, and solutions providers gathered to do business. Using IFPA year-round resources, we tracked sales data, grappled with supply chain challenges, were inspired by color and lifestyle trends, and digested consumer sentiments.
Produce
We tracked consumer, retail, floral, and foodservice insights to support our businesses through greater insights. We addressed supply chain, sustainability, technology, food safety issues, and more. Most importantly we took advantage of the return of in-person events to connect with the full supply chain.
Solution Providers
We found a home in IFPA in 2022 – connecting with buyers and sellers that depend on your products and services. We learned about innovative solutions to some of the industries’ greatest challenges – food safety, sustainability, supply chain issues, production inputs, packaging, transportation, and more.
CONNECT
We connected with people, products, ideas, insights
Hosting events around the world, IFPA’s most visible activities are gatherings that connect members with each other and with new ideas to drive progress in high-performing organizations. That high performance is also recognized through the IFPA awards and scholarship programs. Less visible, but equally important, we also connect more than 1,000 volunteers from around the world to guide our programs, resources, and events.
Members around the world connected in 2022
After two years of pandemic-induced restrictions, IFPA members were able to once again make in-person connections at events, meetups and more.
View our 2023 Signature Events
Volunteers at Work
1,200 members worldwide volunteered to guide IFPA in our service to members. From multi-year service on the Board of Directors, committees, and councils to only a few hours or days on micro-volunteer assignments, members touch every aspect of IFPA offerings. Only members can participate in these groups that guide the association and give back to the produce and floral industries through these groups:
Awards and Scholarships
Recognizing excellence within our member companies, IFPA offered scholarships to bring deserving individuals to IFPA events and awarded individuals and companies for meritorious efforts in marketing, advocacy, leadership, science, and technology. This opportunity to highlight performance excellence in member companies puts our industry’s best and brightest in the spotlight. We appreciate the industry veterans that partner with IFPA to offer awards and scholarships to continue to grow the best of our industry.
At IFPA, advocacy encompasses our work in U.S. policy and government relations, providing the strongest possible voice on Capitol Hill. It also refers to our Joy of Fresh work through The Foundation for Fresh Produce to grow consumption for a healthier world.
Our policy work in 2022 centered on five priority policy areas: nutrition, food safety, organics, supply chain, and workforce/immigration.
Fruit and Vegetable Moonshot
To single out just one highlight, IFPA put forward our Fruit and Vegetable Moonshot, an eight-point plan on U.S. nutrition strategy. The Biden administration’s plan, released at White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, incorporated a majority of IFPA’s policy recommendations. IFPA CEO Cathy Burns and nutrition policy lead Mollie Van Lieu attended the event.
Advocacy Outcomes
Produce Prescriptions
As a result of advocacy, throughout 2022 USDA, the Veterans Service Administration, and Indian Health Services, respectively, invested an additional $65 million in produce prescription programs, providing key seed money to garner data and evidence to launch nationwide – a key goal of IFPA and the White House Conference on Nutrition.
The White House Conference
Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA)
IFPA was instrumental in creating a letter co-signed by more than 3 dozen organizations representing the produce industry urging the quick passage of the OSRA. This new law is designed to ensure that food and perishable products can fairly compete for shipping capacity and schedules with ocean carriers.
Supply Chain Disruptions
WIC
USDA announced the long-awaited proposed update of the WIC Food Package – up to quadrupling the amount of fresh fruits and vegetable available to low-income moms and young children. Approximately half of all babies born in the US today are eligible for WIC. A mom and young child would be eligible for up to $75 a month in fruits and vegetables.
On Capitol Hill
The unified voice of IFPA members effectively advanced our policy efforts in 2022. Members gave of our time and influence to come face-to-face with policymakers and regulators to advocate for our priorities: a two-day Policy & Regulatory Forum for IFPA leadership groups in Washington, D.C., and The Washington Conference that attracted hundreds of us to the U.S. capital.
Through The Foundation for Fresh Produce, we promoted the Joy of Fresh and worked to drive greater consumption of fresh produce to grow a healthier world.
Merger Announcement
We announced the upcoming merger with Produce for Better Health Foundation. Our missions are in synch, and combining our efforts will permit more-robust efforts to help close the fruit and vegetable consumption gap in America and around the world.
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SxSW
Brought the Joy of Fresh to SxSW in an activation that featured flower crowns and bouquets and fresh produce. IFPA uses events like these to bring our industry to consumers and cultural learnings to our members.
Joy of Fresh
Spotlighted the Joy of Fresh at The Washington Conference, with an activation on Capitol Hill featuring fresh produce and flowers for conference participants, key congressional staff, and consumer advocates.
Race for a Healthier World 5K
Hosted a fund-raising 5K race at the IFPA Global Produce & Floral Show helping the Foundation's vision to grow a healthier world by changing the trajectory of human health.
We used IFPA programs to guide our decisions and grow our people
Whether in person or online, IFPA guidance enlightened our deliberations, informed our decisions, grew our leaders, and trained our teams.
Research & Reports
To augment information our individual companies have, IFPA identified the most important research and reports. Many of these are member-exclusive, a direct benefit of being part of IFPA. We can highlight only a few here, but you can check out the full array of resources.
Top Ten Global Consumer Trends for 2022
Top 2022 Reports
U.S. Economic Impact: Produce & Floral Industries
IFPA commissioned Kleinhenz & Associates to provide a comprehensive overview of the economic and employment impact represented by the entire fresh produce and floral supply chains.
Highlight: Fresh produce and floral contributed $339.4 billion to the U.S. output in 2022.
Read now
Thought Leadership
IFPA offers multiple opportunities to gather and share
critical information and perspectives members can use to illuminate their decisions.
Your Go-To Food Safety Resource
Our experts make IFPA the go-to place for produce food safety, which is the top issue for many companies throughout the supply chain. We are committed to offering the latest science and the best expertise to help members protect their products and their reputations. In 2022, we hosted trainings and programs as well as diligently worked to provide technical support to members in need.
Technical support (consultations and food safety crises)
Food Safety Produce Immersion Program
Meet the 10 selected participants of the 2022 program who are all rising members of the next generation of produce safety professionals! They've spent six months building their technical capacity, critical thinking skills, and leadership attributes.
Learn More
Recall Ready Workshop
Role playing through a simulated crisis to learn how to best navigate the situation and develop a customized communication plan.
Watch our mock recall Virtual Town Hall!
Sci-Tech Commitment
IFPA gathers the brightest minds in science and technology to help members make sense of increasingly complex trends.
Think Tanks
The Think Tanks program included state of the supply chain, the carbon economy, gene editing, and integrated pest management.
Fresh Takes on Tech Podcast
Fresh Takes on Tech Podcast examines technology and innovation in the fresh produce and floral industries. Listen to our most popular episode of the year!
Fresh Field Catalyst
A tech accelerator program, Fresh Field Catalyst, brings technology innovations to our members, these Twelve companies received Fresh Field Catalyst Awards in 2022.
IFPA Meets Us Where We Are
To maximize our time, IFPA brought expertise to our desktops.
Newsletters
Newsletters digested information we need to succeed.
IFPA newsletter (with 57,000+ subscribers)
Audience-specific newsletters: floral, retail, Career Pathways, food safety, and government relations.
Virtual Town Halls
Virtual Town Halls offered weekly sessions (accessible 24-7) on topics that affect members every day.
Topics include: Advocacy, Consumer Trends, Floral, Food Safety, Foodservice, Marketing, Retail, Supply Chain, Sustainability, Talent, and Technology
Training and Development
To develop our companies’ most valuable assets – our staffs and our leaders – IFPA provided a variety of learning experiences.
Online Learning Academy
Spanning more than 50 online courses spanning nine categories and moved 250 eager learners through the courses on marketing; business management; food safety and quality; diversity, equity, and inclusion; retail; floral; and women’s leadership.
"The Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) coursework was a great learning experience. I enjoyed the different topics presented and learned new DEI terms I did not know about before. It was engaging and an overall great experience taking the course!"
Vanessa Coria
Mission Produce, Inc. Project Engineer
Career Pathways
Career Pathways engaged more than 100 students – in person and online – to introduce them to potential careers in the produce and floral industries. This is just one of the IFPA initiatives that engaged 101 universities to bring the best and brightest to our industries.
"The Career Pathways Program has not only provided me the opportunity to start my career in the produce industry, but also has given me the resources to succeed. As a young professional, the impact this program has had on me and the trajectory of my career path is immeasurable."
Sydney Schutkowski
Business Development Representative, The Oppenheimer Group
IFPA Interns
IFPA launched the first year of a five-year internship program, funded by USDA, providing 12 interns with a unique work experience and an introduction to produce and floral.
Meet the IFPA
2022 Interns
IFPA Professional
Development Pathways
Leadership Training
Leadership training and professional development moved 200+ students through the Emerging Leaders Program, the year-long Leadership Program, and Women’s Leadership programs (online and in person). Additionally, 50 students graduated from the Produce Executive Development Program at Cornell University.
Meet Class 27
We tapped volunteer leaders, staff experts, and technology to make it all happen
IFPA is a global association by members for members, so it bears mentioning again that more than 1,000 members volunteered their time and expertise to guide IFPA priorities and programs in 2022.
The IFPA staff comprises more than 80 individuals with subject-matter, technical, and/or association management expertise. They take the guidance and direction from the volunteers and build top-shelf, relevant programs, resources, and events that members count on.
Coalitions
Just as our members join IFPA to do more collectively than they could on their own, IFPA joins coalitions to strengthen our voice and expand our reach. These are some of the coalitions and collaborations IFPA was part of in 2022:
- International Federation for Produce Standards
- Food and Beverage Issues Alliance
- Minor Crop Farmer Alliance
- Crop Protection Coalition
- The Alliance for New Immigration Consensus
- Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
- Codex Committee on Food Hygiene as a member of the U.S. delegation
- Produce Industry Coalition
- Partnership for Food Safety Education
- IAFP’s Produce Safety & Quality Professional Development Group
- IFT’s Fruit and Vegetable Division
- Center for Produce Safety
- Produce Traceability Initiative
IFPA staff visited member farms, facilities and stores
Staff and members also attended global gatherings, ensuring that IFPA members were represented – to promote their interests and to gather information we can disseminate back to members from those events. They included:
- Produce-specific shows from organizations like Western Growers, Texas International Produce Association, Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association and many regional events.
- Global events like Fruit Logistica and the Global Food Safety Initiative.
- IFPA also engaged in worldwide events that feature floral, including American Hort’s Cultivate, the New England Produce Conference, Expo Flor Ecuador, Tropical Plant International Expo (TPIE), International Floriculture Trade Fair (The Netherlands), and Chrysanthemum Week (Colombia).
IFPA @ The Consumer Electronics Show
- Relevant events such as CES from the Consumer Technology Association , the International Association for Food Protection, the Institute of Food Technologists, GFSI - The Global Food Safety Initiative Conference.
An Award-Winning Website
IFPA’s investments in technology continued through 2022, allowing members to connect virtually.
The IFPA website was recognized with a 2022 Optimizer Award in the ‘Most Customer-Centric Experience’ category by Optimizely, the leading digital experience platform (DXP) provider used by IFPA to power its website. We kept members at the forefront of website design at all times, including making every page meet today’s accessibility standards.
Are you an IFPA Member?
If you joined us for our inaugural year, be sure to renew your membership now. And if you’re not yet an IFPA member, join today to benefit from the connections, advocacy, and insights that can drive your company forward.