Thank you to everyone who voted in our annual Best New Retail Products Contest!

The nominees ranged from innovative product debuts to established brands and Hearth & Fire Frozen Pizzas by Schwan’s was voted No. 1. In addition to a Q&A with Hearth & Fire, we sat down with Schwan’s for an episode of From the Cold Corner podcast.

The rest of the top five pulled away from the pack of over a dozen nominated products in online voting during March Frozen Food Month and have Q&As in this issue:

No. 2: Little Leaf Farms Sweet Butter Baby Lettuce
No. 3: JOYBA Bubble Tea Blueberry Pomegranate
No. 4: Woodstock Frozen Pasta
No. 5: Good Foods Grab & Go Snack Packs

Our July cover story is the annual look at the state of the cold and frozen foods industry and how food manufacturers are driving sales through innovation, product development and meeting the needs of consumers in new ways.

Our “hot city” this month is Savannah. The Port of Savannah, which handles one out of every 8.8 loaded twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) container units in the U.S., is a big part of why.

And your next salad may be made with lettuce grown at new heights or in new ways. Our July feature looks at controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and how the technology is shaping the farm of the future.

Plus we have a column by Dan Labell, president of Westfalia Technologies, on how automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) can drive cost savings in cold storage facilities.

The July tech showcase highlights refrigeration controls and equipment and you can find new palletizing and warehouse equipment in the packaging section.

Thank you for reading.