Industry comment is currently being solicited to evaluate the feasibility of consolidating four organizations representing Washington's tree fruit industry.

"The public comment period will end on Jan. 10," West Mathison, an at-large member of the consolidation task force told The Produce News Dec. 5. "We [are looking] for phone, email and face-to-face comments."

While all Florida citrus growers have had to battle greening disease over the past decade with shrinking annual production, some are finding a way to take a tough situation and turn it just peachy.

Greening (also known as Huanglongbing or HLB) affects production in bearing groves, and the only solution for a severely infected grove is destruction. Florida has lost thousands of acres of citrus groves over the past decade — prime agricultural land sitting fallow.

Epic Produce Sales, based in Phoenix, added PETER JURADO to its sales team.

At Epic Produce, Jurado specializes in product for export and handles all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the United States.

“Our continued goal is to offer customers potatoes that have traveled the least amount of miles, are of high quality, give retailers value and savings and provide the service that today’s consumers are searching out,” Ken Gray, vice president of sales and marketing for the Bushwick Commission in Farmingdale, NY, told The Produce News.

Gray said that the company feels that having a variety of package options gives it an edge. It continues to ship more three-pound packages to its customers.

“According to some of our customers, overall blueberry exports are expected to increase from last year even though Chile suffered a series of frosts that affected a large part of the blueberry growing area,” said Nelly Yunta, vice president of sales, marketing and customer care, liner and logistics business groups for Crowley Maritime Corp. in Jacksonville, FL, and vice president of Customized Brokers, the customs brokerage and consulting division located in Miami. “These weather events caused damage, and some growers lost most of their production.

Key Food Stores Co-operative Inc., a chain of independently owned and operated grocery stores, announced the grand opening of its 150th location and introduce a new banner into its supermarket family: Urban Market.

Urban Market can best be described as a hybrid boutique supermarket, creating a unique shopping experience that intertwines full selections of both conventional and specialty items.