In celebration of #GivingTuesday, Food Lion is surprising clients at local hunger relief agencies in the Charlotte, NC, Salisbury, NC, and Roanoke, VA, with $25 Food Lion gift cards.

As clients arrive at these agencies on Tuesday, Dec. 2, for a daily meal or food distribution, Food Lion associates will greet them with gift cards. This donation, part of the nationally celebrated #GivingTuesday event, will provide more than 110,000 holiday meals to individuals and families in need.

River Point Farms, a leading onion producer, announced it has broken ground on a new 70,000-square-foot whole onion packaging facility featuring state-of-the-art equipment. When complete, River Point Farms will operate over 95,000 square feet of whole onion packaging and shipping facilities at the company's headquarters in Hermiston, OR.

A new mesh sleeve consumer pack designed to minimize onion skin flaking is now available from Owyhee Produce of Nyssa, OR.

In describing the Sleeve Pack, which holds onions in a single column, Owyhee General Manager Shay Myers said the benefits are immediately apparent.

The Andrew Smith Co., based in Salinas, CA, announced the addition of industry veteran Dudley Brinan to its sales and customer service department on Nov. 24.

Brinan brings over 20 years of experience to his new position as sales and outside procurement manager at the company. “Maximizing efficiency and minimizing customer logistics is my mission,” he said in a company press release. “With freight rates going higher, when you can save the customer multiple stops it means a lot.”

With the change in seasons comes a change in production regions as Prime Time International, headquartered in Coachella, CA, begins to source some of its signature green and colored pepper crop from West Mexico through its Nogales office and warehouse.

RIO RICO, AZ — December will bring shipments of chili peppers and yellow, red and green Bell peppers from R.C.F Produce Inc., a produce distributor based here.

In January will come a few tomatoes from Baja and a volume shipments of Romas from Sinaloa, said Malu Crespo, who is R.C.F.’s president and general manager.