CPMA Montreal Conference Wrap-Up!

The 94th Annual CPMA Convention + Expo in Montreal was a week to remember! This year, Montreal treated us with insightful events and a focus on innovation. Gold sponsor Thomas Fresh unveiled their first-ever Montreal exhibitor booth on the trade show floor with an eye-catching look.

The CPMA convention began on Tuesday with the Chair’s Welcome Reception at the beautiful Le Parquet, where we met with industry friends, while sampling a series of Maritime inspired food and drinks. On Wednesday morning, Thomas Fresh, a CPMA Centre Plate Partner, sponsored the annual Passion for Produce Speed Mentoring session. The event hosts a set up for the next generation of produce leaders to discuss career aspirations, goals and trends with a panel of industry veteran mentors.

At our Thomas Fresh booth, we showcased our most popular trending products. The top of the list, which was also found in our product showcase, was our new 8 ct. Foil Wrapped Russet Potato Pouches. These premium golden spuds offer value added potatoes for everyday meals, weekend barbecues with a larger pack size and convenient package. Also found in our product line up was our limited edition Think Pink Onion, which raises funds for Breast Cancer Research, our Organic offerings and a few of our popular Asian/ Ethnic category options including Dragon Fruit, Asian Pear and Peeled Garlic.

After the tradeshow doors closed on Wednesday, the Thomas Fresh ladies made their way over to the Women in Produce Reception, where our Director of National Accounts, Michèle McMillan made an inspiring speech to a room full of produce oriented women. Fun fact – 2019 was the first year that women outnumbered men in the

Passion for Produce program. It should be noted that the selection process is completely blind for P4P. No individual names, company names and/or sponsor names are provided in the selection process. Applicants are chosen solely on the merit of their application.

Following a silent disco and wall of donuts at the after-party on Wednesday night; the energy continued at Thomas Fresh on Thursday morning. Our booth was home to many wonderful conversations along with a tricky number focused challenge involving our shiny pearl onions.

We invited attendees to count the amount of red pearl onions in an oversized freestanding wine glass – keeping in mind that pearl onions are very small. The larger than life wine glass was inspired by Montreal’s world-renowned food and wine culture. Many attendees took a guess,

but in the end the winner was Nicole from the Calgary Produce Marketing Association who’s guess was 11 away from the total amount of 761 red pearl onions. Nicole was gifted a free Amazon Echo for her impressive counting abilities – congrats!

Within our Thomas Fresh booth, we were also proud to celebrate our ‘20th and counting’ anniversary which was featured in the newest issue of Grocery Business Magazine. The celebratory article provides a snapshot of Thomas Fresh history, current projects, future aspirations, along with interviews with our CEO, Roy Hinchey and other superstar employees. See the full article > Here

We would like to thank the Canadian Produce Marketing Association for a fabulous show and we can’t wait to do it all again in Toronto next year!