Lipman, one of North America’s largest open-field tomato growers, has committed $200,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Collier County in Florida to help fund the nonprofit’s first location in Immokalee.

The 16,000-square-foot facility, which is slated to open in early 2016, will serve more than 400 children and young adults with afterschool and summer programming.

Irwindale, CA-based Ready Pac Foods Inc. has promoted Rick Montoya to vice president of the retail specialties division and Sean McClure to procurement manager within the same division. Montoya, who has held the role of procurement manager for the retail specialties division since 2008, will be stepping into his new position to replace Ken Ewalt, who ran Ready Pac’s retail specialties division for the last 16 years.

Sure, Georgia is known for peaches, but since the late 1800s the state has led the nation in pecan production. November is National Pecan Month and Georgia pecan growers are getting ready for the hectic holiday season. Here, grower Al Pearson talks with Atlanta’s FOX News affiliate for a look at the season under way.

Weis Markets, based in Sunbury, PA, announced JOHN NEUBERGER as vice president of operational administration on Nov. 4.

The 2013 tree fruit production season bodes well for marketing and merchandising opportunities for Domes Superfresh Growers and its customer base. The company, located in Yakima, WA, is one of the state’s premiere grower-packer-shippers of a host of fresh fruit including apples and pears.

“Our one and one-half-pound steamer bags of sweet potatoes, packed 12 to a case, are growing exponentially in demand,” George Wooten, president of Wayne E. Bailey in Chadbourn, NC, told The Produce News.

“We actually ran out of the product from the 2012 crop that was in storage, and then when the new crop came in we jumped right back on getting them out as quickly as possible,” he said.

The item’s popularity is in part because it’s a perfect family-size bag of sweet potatoes. Another reason is that it is available under the Green Giant Fresh label.