The Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association is sponsoring a web seminar to help cantaloupe growers prepare for inspections from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in the wake of new safety regulations that came about following deadly foodborne illness outbreaks traced to cantaloupe in 2011 and 2012.

The webinar will show growers and shippers how to prepare for and what to expect during an FDA visit.

Safeway Inc. announced that Robert L. Edwards, currently the company's president, will succeed Steven A. Burd as chief executive officer May 14 when Mr. Burd retires as chairman and CEO. Mr. Edwards, 57, will also join the company's board of directors.

In what is called a proposed statement of decision after court trial, a superior court judge in Sacramento, CA, has stated that the "adoption and approval of the Marketing Order for California Raisins" by the California Secretary of Food & Agriculture, which formed the California Raisin Marketing Board in 1996, was "invalid as a matter of law" and that the marketing order itself is, therefore, invalid.

The proposed statement of decision by Judge Raymond M. Cadei was issued April 15 after about seven weeks of trial.

In spring 2011, the Georgia Legislature approved an anti-immigration bill that made migrant workers so scarce crops rotted in fields due to a lack of harvesters, creating a $500 million revenue vacuum.

Grower Alliance LLC in Nogales, AZ, has picked up a small spring watermelon deal out of Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, according to Jorge Quintero Jr., managing partner.

It was a deal the company hadn’t planned on, he said, but it complements the company’s regular spring melon deal out of Hermosillo, Sonora.

The Guaymas deal consists of about 65 hectares [160 acres] of seedless watermelons. “We are expecting maybe about 120 to 140 loads,” Mr. Quintero said.

Morada Produce Co. LP in Linden, CA, has made “a lot of changes” to its cherry packing facility during the off-season, according to Michael Jameson, marketing director and export salesman for the company. The biggest change has been the installation of “the largest optical cherry sorter in the world,” he said.

The new sorter is manufactured in Italy by Unitec and “can sort fruit for firmness, for color, for size, for defects, for double and spur recognition. So it is a huge advancement to our company this year,” Mr. Jameson said.