On Friday, April 27, Adams Produce Co. LLC, headquartered in Birmingham, AL, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has subsequently shut down all of its nine locations in five states, and laid off 400 workers.

Seminole Growers, formerly Orrin Cope Produce Inc., has been a growers’ representative for over 35 years. The company handles beans, squashes, cherry and field tomatoes and corn.

This year, the company will be opening an office in Edneyville, NC, which is adjacent to Hendersonville and Ashville.

Jason Bell, account manager for Sydney, FL-based Tater Man Inc., told The Produce News that the company is gearing up for the start of its 2012 sweet potato program with a new package size.

Cheriton, VA-based Northampton Growers is a leading producer of a wide-variety of field vegetables, including peppers, squashes, beans, cabbages, greens such as kale, mustard and collards, cucumbers, eggplant, corn, hard squashes and onions. The company was founded in 1959 and has since then, grown from a two-person operation to a full-time in-house staff of thirty employees.

The company follows the seasons northward from Florida each year, and then marks its path back southward in the fall.

Stellar Distributing Inc. in Madera, CA, picked its first fresh California figs of the 2012 season in the Niland area in California’s southern desert May 11 and will have figs of one or more varieties available continuously throughout December and, weather permitting, into the first week of January, according to Sales Manager Kurt Cappelluti.

“We finished planting last fall an additional 40 acres of organic fruit in the desert,” said George Kragie, president of Western Fresh Marketing in Madera, CA, in an interview with The Produce News May 4.