06/02/05 Pear annual and regulatory meetings

Today kicks off the annual Pear Bureau Northwest series of annual and regulatory meetings, with this year's event to be held in Portland. Day one features meetings of the Pacific Northwest Canned Pear Service, Pear Processing Committee, Oregon Bartlett Pear Commission, and Pear Bureau's Export division. MOFFITT: Basically, that's two days of regulatory meetings which sounds a little bit dry but really it's a wonderful opportunity for growers and people in the industry to see the direction of where we're going. You get a really good idea of what's going on in terms of marketing, research, everything's covered in these meetings. And they're all open to the industry to sit in on and actually participate in. But Kevin Moffitt says also generating buzz at this year's meeting is the organizational work to merge the various pear marketing committees as approved by growers earlier this spring, as well as day two activities such as the annual Pear Bureau Northwest meeting and the keynote address. MOFFITT: We have a special guest speaker Elizabeth Pivonka of the Produce for Better Health Foundation & the Five a Day people. Elizabeth will be talking about the new trends of nutrition, the new pyramid that the U.S.D.A. just put out, the effects of the obesity that's running rapid in the United States. In our next program, new pear marketing promotions for the year are introduced.