Cold snaps make for scarce, costly produce

On a grocery run after work Tuesday evening, I circled the produce section several times looking for strawberries, thinking I was not looking carefully enough. Another customer, too, wondered where the red berries were and asked the produce clerk: "No more strawberries?"

The clerk politely informed us that strawberries -- what there are of them -- have been selling out by early afternoon during these recent winter weeks. As the Bradenton Herald reports Saturday with news partner Miami Herald, the cold snap is causing some vegetables and fruit to be more costly these days.

Though strawberries weren't hit as hard as other Florida crops, other crops were not as fortunate. Florida tomatoes were among some of the hardest hit in Florida. Many growers lost all of their tomato crop and prices for tomatoes increased about 25 to 40 percent across the board.

"As soon as (farmers) knew they were going to lose those crops, tomato prices shot up," said George Caldwell, director of purchasing at Global Organics Specialty Source, a Manatee County-based organic supply company.

Talking about tourism

In the first BizBlast blog I told you about the free marketing Visit Florida is offering to tourism businesses. Now I want to tell you about some plans the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is working on to help local businesses with their overall marketing strategies.

In today's business section, you'll see the bureau hosted another tourism industry meeting on Wednesday. While those meetings have mainly addressed oil spill issues, interim director Elliott Falcione indicated he'd like future meetings to be educational workshops for tourism businesses.

Falcione said future meetings will aim to bring in local experts on online marketing, social media networking and other marketing strategies to help tourism businesses  reach their clients more effectively. In addition, Falcione said the meetings should be an opportunity for business owners to share what's helping or hurting their sales.

The next tourism industry meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. Aug. 11 at Holmes Beach City Hall. That meeting will give you an opportunity to meet the bureau's new Executive Manager Debbie Meihls, who will oversee sales and marketing for the bureau and maybe learn a tip or two for your business.