The PMA, which is holding its five-day annual convention starting on October 17, plans to build on recent successes staging web conferences to deliver news and information on key issues to its membership by extending its use of this medium to focus on the food-service sector.

The association has scheduled its latest web conference for October 28 and it is directed at catering operators, distributors and producers and exporters with food-service customers.

The conference will address key findings from PMA's FreshTrack research programme and its findings ñ FreshTrack 2003: A Menu of Opportunity ñ will be released to the industry at this weekend's convention.

Preliminary results from the research show that 83 per cent of respondents believe fresh produce will be either important or very important to food-service operators when they consider new menu items. Producer relationships with food-service operators were also surveyed and revealed a trend of increased operator involvement. Two-thirds of operators said they planned to increase discussions with growers regarding products and varieties while 41 per cent will increase discussions concerning harvest criteria.

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