Stemilt Growers is continuing its 50th year anniversary celebration by introducing a new seal for select cell-packed cartons of premium late storage Golden Delicious apples.

"Heritage Gold" celebrates the favorite apple of Tom Mathison, Stemilt's late founder, and will appear on 50th anniversary cartons of select Golden Delicious apples for a limited time only.

Vision Import Group LLC, headquartered in River Edge, NJ, hired Bruce Letchworth as its sales manager of the company’s newly opened Lakeland, FL facility when it opened last August.

This month Wegmans Food Market will be sponsoring a program that will boost the sustainability efforts of its customers. When a customer brings plastic bags to a Wegmans for recycling it will increase the contribution the company will make to The Nature Conservancy, a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect lands and water.

Farmington Fresh, a leading supplier of fresh-cut apples, has recently expanded its operations and acquired the assets of Stockton, CA-based Onions Etc., effective April 1, as part of multi-year expansion plan and company reorganization.

Onions Etc., a shipper-packer of onions and other fruit and vegetable products, has built a name for itself with the "Home Grown" brand and a focus on packaging and merchandising that engages the consumers and offers retailers program-driven sales solutions.

The pressure is on organic apple and pear producers to evaluate and test potential alternatives to replace the use of the antibiotics streptomycin and oxytetracycline to combat the spread of fire blight. The disease not only destroys fruit, it is highly contagious among trees and can decimate  entire orchards.

Construction is under way on a huge new cooling and packing facility in Oxnard, CA, on a 20-acre site a 10-minute drive from the current bursting-at-the-seams facility of Mission Produce Inc. that will not only meet the company’s immediate expansion needs but will provide room for future growth, according to David Fausset, retail sales manager.

“In our old location, there really wasn’t any space to grow,” he said March 17. “We wanted to build something with enough capacity at the beginning that we can actually grow into.”