Index Fresh, a grower-owned packing, marketing and shipping company located in Bloomington, CA, has added Bailey DiIoia to its field staff. He will be working with Gary Nichols to serve California's Ventura County growers.

It was the mid-1970s, and like many other young transplanted Midwesterners, the 20-something Earl Herrick was simply enjoying life in San Francisco. He grew up in Ohio but moved west to try something different.

Once upon a time in American culture, nothing was easier than making apple pie.

But somewhere between the creation of the Internet and Tweeting, the simple art was lost.

Riveridge Produce Marketing, Inc., hasn’t given up on the “Millennials” or Generation Y, which involves people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s.

The typical heavy Christmas pull for fruits and vegetables combined with the weather issues and reluctance of some drivers to hit the road over the holidays caused freight rates to spike a bit through December. And while there was some lingering effect with $7,000 cross country rates still being quoted in early January, industry experts were expecting adequate supplies and a small drop in rates during the late winter/early spring period.

One can't pick up a food magazine or watch a cable food show without seeing the wonders of quinoa explored. Often it is paired with vegetables and now a clamshell pack of quinoa is available in some retail produce departments.