Now and then, I notice some shoppers enter produce departments, look around, pick up an item, place it back on the display, and leave without buying anything. Why is that? I don’t think those customers came into the store just to browse. The supermarket isn’t a gift shop. People browse in gift shops but buy food in supermarkets.

“The market is slow to come to California,” but all signs indicate customers “will be buying here” shortly, Dennis Johnston, a partner in Johnston Farms in Edison, CA, said May 13 as the shipping season for California red, yellow and white new potatoes got under way.

The russet harvest in California had not yet started.

JemD Farms and Agricola El Rosal have begun the final phases of their brand transition strategy, which will result in the group becoming Red Sun Farms.

The change has been ongoing for the past three years and has been designed to take advantage of the three company's synergies including logos, corporate cultures and places emphasis on the well-known consumer brand.

Farm Fresh Produce Inc. is doubling its Napa cabbage production this spring, said company owner Steven Ceccarelli.

Ceccarelli “doubled up” his Napa acreage this year to 60 acres. It will be the second consecutive year that the firm has doubled this production.

Like the entire East Coast, Ceccarelli’s operation, based in Faison, NC, suffered a long, cold winter, which somewhat delayed spring planting. His normal harvest date is around May 6-7.

For 85 years, Brooks Tropicals has grown and sold tropical fruits from its South Florida headquarters. Charlie Brooks took the foray into agriculture when the real estate market was difficult in the 1920s, and the company has been on an upward swing ever since.

Over 200 people attended the Eastern Produce Council's May 13 meeting, which took place at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market. This was only the second time that the council has held a meeting outside its traditional metropolitan New York and New Jersey zone. The council met in Philadelphia in 2012.