ORLANDO, Fla. — From geopolitical conflict and soaring energy costs to trade tariffs and a devastating food safety outbreak, the global produce and floral industries have endured a succession of economic and operational shocks over the past year.
Addressing attendees at the International Fresh Produce Association’s Global Produce and Floral Show, CEO Cathy Burns outlined the complex headwinds facing the sector, while calling on leaders to view these interconnected hurdles as an opportunity to drive systemic change.
“Ours is an integrated story with issues that are part of a global system that rise or fall together,” Burns says, emphasizing that driving fresh produce consumption requires a stable, safe year-round supply supported by labor reliability, sustainable packaging and advocacy that yields a return on influence, innovation and impact.
From Outbreak Recovery to Full Supply Chain Visibility
Central to restoring that stability is directly confronting one of the industry’s most pressing concerns: food safety. Tackling the recent cyclospora outbreak head-on, Burns highlighted the severe toll of the crisis.
“Our industry saw retail losses of $280 million per month — 6.5 million households stopped eating salads,” she says.
In response, the IFPA immediately mobilized resources like virtual town halls and real-time FAQs while remaining in constant contact with regulators, ultimately becoming the fifth-most-cited information source at the height of the outbreak alongside the FDA and CDC, Burns says. By actively correcting media inaccuracies and pushing back against online misinformation, the association worked to reclaim the narrative, elevating facts over fear to remind consumers that fresh produce remains safe, healthy and essential.
Following her state of the industry address, Burns expanded on the association’s forward-looking strategy in an interview with The Packer.
“The top item we’re advocating for is the implementation of the traceability rule,” Burns says, pointing out that full supply chain visibility is critical during a public health crisis. “Given the past outbreak, or quite frankly, just outbreaks in general, it allows us to target the product more quickly, more precisely, get it out of the market for the product that was impacted, but as importantly, not pulling product out of the market that shouldn’t be pulled out of the market because it’s not impacted,” she says.
Though full enforcement of FSMA 204 has been delayed until July 2028, Burns emphasizes that the industry cannot afford to wait.
IFPA has developed a warehouse management traceability solution designed to save an estimated 8 million labor hours and $250 million in implementation fees. With initial trials currently underway and additional pilot programs launching in November, Burns anticipates having results ready to scale early next year.
“The time is now and the kick-the-can-down-the-road for traceability implementation needs to stop,” she says. “So, we have a solution … we’re ready.”
Beyond supply chain technology, rebuilding damaged consumer trust remains an urgent hurdle. To lead the industry’s reputation recovery, IFPA has partnered with global communications firm Penta “to defend the truth, and to take the fight for fresh directly into those digital spaces where trust is either won or lost,” says Burns.
“We’re still focused, unfortunately, on recovery because not only has it impacted lettuce and packaged salads, but it has impacted the whole produce department,” she says. Burns emphasizes a primary goal is ensuring shoppers realize the outbreak has ended by actively sharing official updates from the CDC and FDA to restore public confidence.
“Now recovery will take more than a strong response,” she says. “It will take all of us standing together. This is our moment to emerge from this outbreak — not divided by what we endured, but united by strength, by trust and by purpose. Food safety is and always will be core to what we do, and we will continue to advocate for a modernized food safety regulatory environment.”
Beyond traceability and public messaging, IFPA is leveraging artificial intelligence to shift food safety from reactive measures to faster, predictive monitoring. Highlighting technological advances in pathogen detection, Burns notes that IFPA built its own pathogen scraper this year to actively monitor the same public health databases used by the FDA and CDC.
“Not only is this super cool, actually, it is incredibly impactful,” Burns says, explaining that early detection changes conversations with regulators and allows IFPA to directly alert members if a health signal touches their business.
Burns underscores that emerging technology, food safety and global trade are inextricably linked, serving as the core foundation for consumer demand.
“Fresh produce only moves at the speed of trust,” Burns says.
And when confidence is shaken, the disruption does not stop at one commodity, one country or one company; it causes a ripple effect across the system.
“When confidence is strong, borders open, markets function, buyers buy and consumers choose fresh,” she adds. “As we talk about reliable supply, we must recognize that safety, traceability, transparency and trade flow are all part of the same message and the same promise: getting fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers to people safely, consistently and efficiently.”
Volatility and Soaring Prices
Beyond market dynamics and rising inflation, environmental pressures and extreme weather are increasingly challenging produce at the most fundamental level.
“Trade determines how fresh products move across borders, but climate and weather actually increasingly determine whether they can be grown in the first place,” Burns says. “We must talk about the forces impacting production itself. That’s why IFPA’s sustainability work is not abstract. It is how we protect our industry from an increasingly volatile world.”
To safeguard growers against these shifting economic and climate forces, IFPA is driving sustainability initiatives — such as regaining federal funding for regenerative agriculture, establishing global standards with the Consumer Goods Forum and engaging the United Nations.
Yet upcoming climate phenomena threaten to compound existing economic pressures.
“As if the headwinds brought on by a global conflict and a changing trade environment isn’t enough, let’s add a literal headwind: the super El Niño expected to develop this year and extend through 2027,” Burns warns, noting JP Morgan projections that the weather event paired with high oil prices could trigger a global food price shock and add 30 basis points to inflation.
With extreme heat threatening agro-food systems worldwide, Burns argues sustainable practices must be treated as a competitive necessity.
“Our message to policymakers is crystal clear and very simple as it relates to sustainability: Increasing produce consumption is climate action,” she says.
Extended Producer Responsibility
Turning her attention to packaging regulations, Burns says Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a critical issue sitting at the intersection of sustainability, food safety and trade.
“It is a global issue and could fundamentally reshape your businesses,” Burns warns, pointing to California alone, where 2027 EPR fees are projected to reach $9 billion to $17 billion over five years, costing non-small business producers up to $450,000 each in compliance.
With seven states already regulating EPR and up to 17 more considering legislation, IFPA is actively pushing for exemptions and uniform federal standards rather than a patchwork of state rules.
“We are advocating for exemptions and exclusions from EPR regs because packaging is so critical to reducing food loss and food waste, traceability, shelf-life extension and supporting food safety outcomes,” Burns says, emphasizing that IFPA is taking this unified message directly to Washington, D.C.
To bridge policy advocacy with the systemic challenges facing the industry, Burns also points to practical innovations taking shape on the show floor. She highlighted seven companies featured in IFPA’s packaging innovation program — spanning established industry veterans to nimble startups — that are developing leading-edge solutions to meet evolving regulatory demands.
Elevate Health, Nutrition and Policy Integration
Shifting to global nutrition advocacy, Burns details IFPA and the Foundation for Fresh Produce’s wins in embedding fresh produce into policy frameworks, including the updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the EU’s Safe Hearts Plan.
She also highlights a major policy victory in medical education, noting the federal administration announced mandatory nutrition training for medical students following IFPA advocacy.
“We have been advocating for this for a very, very long time,” Burns says. “This is such an important audience because it’s our future doctors who are supposed to be giving us advice on clinical care ... if we’re talking about preventing diet-related diseases, this is part of that solution.”
To drive consumer engagement, IFPA launched its “All Day Every Day” campaign to simplify nutritional guidance into an accessible, everyday habit. Reflecting on the broader impact of these legislative and promotional wins, Burns says lasting change demands active structural support.
“The bottom line is this: If we are serious about preventing diet-related diseases, then fruits and vegetables must be central to nutrition strategy and policy — not an afterthought, not an add-on, but a starting point,” says Burns. “You cannot achieve maximum health without them. We are not simply a part of the solution; we’re actually at the heart of it.”
‘Sales Cures All’ — Driving Demand in a Resilient Industry
When asked whether the overarching effort to advance the produce sector has become more daunting amid compounding geopolitical conflicts, tariffs, labor costs and food safety challenges, Burns acknowledges the reality of these obstacles while offering a path forward.
Pointing out only one in 10 Americans currently eats the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables, she says boosting demand remains the ultimate solution: “sales cures all,” she says.
Through policy work that removes supply chain barriers and educational efforts that teach consumers how to select and prepare fresh produce, IFPA and the Foundation for Fresh Produce are actively aligning system-wide advocacy with consumer behavior.
“The fight has gotten harder. But you know what? We’re fighters, we’re resilient,” Burns tells The Packer. “We have deep roots. We have strength, we have conviction. We’re not going to stop. And we need to — now more than ever — come together as an industry both to communicate our messaging and our stories, but also to advocate in a way that makes real change happen.”
