The Washington, DC-based United Fresh Foundation, through the Center for Food Safety & Quality, will conduct three installments of its popular Produce Inspection Training Program in 2012. These hands-on training sessions, executed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, are designed to help produce industry members better understand the breadth of the produce inspection process.

Renaissance Food Group selected Mobishelf, a division of Plastech Specialties Co., to collaborate in the development and implementation of a new mobile marketing initiative for RFG’s “Chef Essentials” product line.

Plastech Specialties manufacturers point-of-purchase materials for supermarkets and food manufacturers across the United States; the company’s Mobishelf division is a means for the company’s clients to expand their marketing efforts by creating, hosting and managing mobile-phone-friendly web sites accessed via QR codes.

Although some areas in the Idaho-Eastern Oregon growing region experienced a later-than-normal harvest, consensus among industry insiders was that quality is good this year.

Candi Fitch, executive director of the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee based in Parma, ID, said in mid-September, “A cool and wetter-than-normal spring slowed planting, causing harvest to start a little later than normal in some areas of the growing region. However, the Idaho-Eastern Oregon onion season is underway, and we look to have an average crop with good quality and a consistent supply.”

No doubt Texas needs rain, but the Rio Grande Valley has not been as dry as the rest of the state, and there is enough water available that even record-setting drought should not have much impact on the state’s citrus season.

“The total crop size is going to be off some,” Ray Prewett, president of Texas Citrus Mutual, told The Produce News Sept. 28. “No one is sure how much, but there’s agreement it’s going to be off some. That’s pretty clear.”