FirstFruits Marketing of Washington ends its fifth annual Take a Bite Out of Hunger program at select retailers with a collective donation of 330,000 pounds of apples to local food banks. This brings the total program donation to approximately 1.25 million pounds over five seasons.

RPE Inc., based in Bancroft, WI, announced the addition of Dave Phillips to its sales team as the director of foodservice sales, effective May 4.

Phillips will be based in RPE’s Blackfoot, ID, office and will be responsible for overseeing the foodservice sales division of the company, as well as serving as the sales manager for both of RPE-Idaho’s offices, and expanding RPE’s relationships with Idaho potato growers. Phillips will report to vice president of sales, Ross Verner.

Flavor 1st can track the produce that customers receive down to the farm, what field it came from, the date it was picked along with any and all maintenance for that field, and now they can also package twice as fast as they had before.

The company added 40,000 square feet to its building in Mills River, NC, and also installed a brand new Aweta line.

“It has a camera system that sorts by color and by size, and it allows us to mechanize our packingline a lot better to make sure our packs are more consistent,” said Mike Porter, who works in sales at Flavor 1st.

John Vena, president of John Vena Inc., located at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, told The Produce News that the company has had a significant increase in its staff in the last 12 months.

“We have expanded our staff by close to 20 percent,” said Vena. “Most jobs we added were at entry level, but two new members of our team are in newly created roles.

“James Collins joined us last summer as our packing room manager,” Vena continued. “His background is in bakery production, and he has brought a lot of experience to our team.”

Familiar names in the Walla Walla Sweets onion deal are again providing retail and wholesale markets with the famed sweet onion this season, with mature onions starting mid-June and running into August.

Safeway announced it will close nine stores in the Denver area on June 13. According to Kristine Staaf, director of public affairs and government relations, the stores had not been profitable for quite time.