PHARR, TX — At Ruiz Sales, families are at the forefront of the company’s mission to provide healthy and safe food.

Richard Ruiz, president of the Edinburg, TX-based distributor of tropical items from Mexico, believes that it is incumbent on the industry to provide fresh, safe and traceable produce to consumers at all times. And proper protocols must be followed at all levels of the supply chain in order to accomplish that goal.

“We are excited about many things; one being our revamped website which was launched just one week ago,” Albert Perez, managing member of Continental Fresh, headquartered in Miami, FL, told The Produce News March 7. “The site, www.continentalfresh.com, describes our product line and our services. It also shares information about our growers, and it tells the story of our ongoing humanitarian efforts.”

The Agricultural Leadership Council in Salinas, CA, whose members include many high-profile produce company executives, received the 2013 Hero Award from the Natividad Medical Foundation in recognition of more than $800,000 in donations made by members over several years, including more than $200,000 during January and February of this year, to purchase needed medical equipment for Navidad Hospital in Salinas.

Supervalu Inc. completed the sale of its Albertsons, Acme, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's and Star Market stores and related Osco and Sav-on in-store pharmacies March 21 to AB Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of a Cerberus Capital Management L.P.-led investor consortium. The stock deal was valued at $3.3 billion, including $100 million in cash and $3.2 billion in debt assumption.

The Fruit & Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corp. launched a new website, FVDRC.com, as part of its renewed focus on Keeping Trade on Track through dispute prevention education.

The new site is designed to better align with recent rebranding and marketing efforts, and offers better access to information to help prevent disputes from happening in the first place. FVDRC.com will enable visitors to quickly call up reference tools such as the active DRC members list, standards, guidelines and form templates.

One hundred years and four generations later, George A. Heimos Produce is well aware of the formula for its success. “Over the years, we’ve always prided ourselves in selling service first and produce second,” President James Heimos Sr. told The Produce News March 8. “To this day we maintain George’s belief that ‘Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.’ ”