Global inflation is pressuring berry category

Jan 06, 2023

The international berry sector gathered at the Global Berry Congress in Rotterdam on November 15, 2022. For the first time since the event was organized, sentiment among participants was mixed rather than just very optimistic reported keynote speaker Cindy van Rijswick, RaboResearch Food & Agriculture.

Inflationary pressures for growers and distributors are not expected to end anytime soon. On top of that, consumer demand is likely to be affected by the inflationary environment. These challenges are prompting the berry industry to make the necessary changes to future-proof the berry sector, focusing on quality rather than quantity going forward.

In her talk, van Rijswick predicted that new varieties with more flavour will be needed to keep consumers spending. Growers need to use less plastic for packaging to appeal to environmentally-conscious consumers.

Source : The Grower

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.