The 2014 Mexican grape crop being offered this spring by Divine Flavor, LLC, “looks very good on all varieties,” said Pedro Batiz, one of the firm’s owners.

Speaking by telephone from the firm’s San Diego office, Batiz said conventional grape shipping for Divine Flavor would begin in the first week of May. Organic grape harvest will come about 10 days later. The firm grows a wide variety of green, red and black grape varieties. This year the company will market 2.3 million boxes of its own grapes and will export another 200,000 boxes produced by independent growers.

The annual Sonora Spring Summit, hosted by the Association Agricola Local de Productores Uva de Mesa, the local association of table grape growers in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, commonly known by its Spanish acronym, AALPUM, is scheduled to be held in Hermosillo April 24-25.

The two-day event is open to producers, distributors, buyers and anyone else in the industry interested in attending. As usual, it will consist of a tour of grape vineyards on one day and meetings on the following day.

Rivermaid Trading Co., a Lodi, CA,-based cherry and pear packer, has installed a GP Graders AirJet Defect Grader in its Lodi facility. The 40-lane cherry line is the largest ever installed by GP Graders.

Patrick Archibeque, chief executive officer of Rivermaid, and his team traveled extensively last year to evaluate all the cherry grading machines and software on the market and found the GP Graders AirJet Defect Grader with Ellips software to be the most impressive.

Despite years of effort by numerous organizations to help the public understand the pros and cons of consuming different types of dietary fats, a new survey by the Hass Avocado Board reveals that most Americans are still unclear about the definition and role of "good" and "bad" fats.

In the HAB survey of more than 1,000 adults, nearly half (42 percent) of people incorrectly thought that all fats play a role in increased cholesterol levels, and if the "don't know/unsure" responses are included, the number increases to 51 percent of people.

Are your produce sales vs. a year ago kind of flat? If so, then it may be time to take a good wise look at where your operation has been for the past five years and where it now needs to start heading. After doing that, plan on how you will start turning those flat sales around.

BRENDAN KEATING joined wholesale grocer Bozzuto’s Inc. April 7 as a perishables account manager. He replaces Kenny Brickel, who has joined Nicholas Markets in Colonia, NJ, as store manager.

Keating, a resident of Bergen County, NJ, has many years of experience in the fresh produce industry, including five-and-a-half years at ShopRite Stores Inc. and 24 years at Kings Super Markets (now Kings Food Markets). Keating, 46, will concentrate on the mid-Atlantic territory for Bozzuto’s, which is headquartered in Cheshire, CT.