The FPC convention has been held at Belton Woods near Grantham for the last two years, but next year will return to the capital.

This time it is being held in conjunction with the National Farmers Union, under the title Horticulture in Focus. It will last one instead of two days, and will be followed by the grower of the year awards dinner. The awards event was previously scheduled alongside the HortEx exhibition, which will not take place this year.

The convention was on the agenda at the last FPC council meeting.

At the meeting the council was updated on a number of crucial matters affecting the trade, including: A code of practice issued by the FPC on best practice advice for hauliers to prevent the entrance of illegal immigrants into their vehicles; the FPC is consulting with members on establishing maximum residue levels for critical crop andchemical combinations, after the European Commission released 28 million euros (approx. £17.6m) in funding for the programme; Chep has reached a 'satisfactory solution for importers' in its new pallet pricing arrangements; and the FPC's financial situation for the nine months ending September 30 is described as healthy, with bank balances 'in line with expectations.' The FPC has also involved itself in the creation of an international federation for the codification of produce, and an agreement has been reached to go ahead with this. The first job of the federation will be to develop Price Look Up codes, the reduced space symbology barcode RSS14, traceability. The industry will be keeping the four figure product ID codes, while EAN/UCC would be denote integrity of packer numbers, traceability codes and barcodes. Jeanine Sabino of Monoprix has been nominated as the first chairperson of the new body.

Those interested in the above event should contact Carol Workman on (01733) 237117.