At Imperial Frozen Foods, the time between Thanksgiving and New Year is usually comparatively quiet. Not this year. Activity is up despite the slow economy.

Cultivated blueberries are finally starting to move at pricing a few months ago would be unmentionable. The USDA is making an offer to buy 3 million pounds of cultivated blueberries and and 2 million pounds of "native" (wild) blueberries . It will be very interesting to see how much the USDA's School Lunch Program pays for blueberries.

Chile is poised to start packing IQF red raspberries. Pricing is down a little from their peak, but still on the high side as far as I am concerned. Cold storage holdings as of October 31st are filled with surprises. Frozen blueberry holdings in the USA are 192 million pounds up a whopping 43% over last year. On the other side of the coin, red raspberry inventories are flat. Only 3% higher than last year with IQF red raspberries slightly short and block frozen raspberries slightly long.

Although I haven't seen the IRI numbers for supermarket sales of fruit for last quarter, our sales to supermarkets of poly bag fruit are up almost 25%. Conventional wisdom says people are cooking at home rather than going out to eat.

Mintel predicts fresh flavor and scent trends for 2009. Mintel executive Lynn Dornblaser claims that adding exotic fruits and unusual ingredients in common products will allow consumers to move from what is familiar and comfortable without having to pay a premium. Read this article to see how exotic fruits will be used in food products in 2009.