It is a simple concept, but Church Bros. LLC believes it has developed the perfect sandwich leaf.

Utilizing old fashioned breeding methods, the company's seed specialist trialed many different Green Leaf lettuce varieties until he found the one with the exact right specification.

"It is the perfect leaf," said Ernst Van Eeghen, director of marketing and product development for the Salinas, CA-based firm. “It is 100 percent useable with no waste because it does not have to trimmed or snapped to fit a burger bun or sandwich bread.”

Shortly after a competitive sporting event, an interview is often held with a key player of the winning team. When asked how he or she felt about making a spectacular play to help win the game, the most common response is that the victory was achieved collectively by all teammates. The players were successful through teamwork.

Babe Ruth once said, "The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won’t be worth a dime."

Well-Pict Inc. will use the PMA Fresh Summit to introduce a premium proprietary strawberry variety that was specifically developed to produce larger berries later in the season as well as a new proprietary raspberry variety with superior flavor.

"These superior plants are already outperforming expectations," Dan Crowley, sales manager for Watsonville, CA-based Well-Pict, said in an Oct. 11 press release. “The bigger strawberries will make for even more beautiful displays this fall, which means even higher sales in produce departments.”

Ten years ago, John Shuman of Shuman Produce Inc. in Reidsville, GA, had an idea for a promotional campaign that would bring much-needed funding to children's hospitals and also help him sell more Vidalia onions that season.

Mr. Shuman had no idea that a decade later he would be celebrating the 10th anniversary of Produce for Kids, a program that has raised more than $3 million for the Children’s Miracle Network of 170 hospitals and for PBS Kids educational campaigns simply through the sale of produce.

Monterey Mushrooms remains committed to investing in the scholastic achievement of its youth. This is evident as Monterey's Carl Victor Fields scholarship program, initiated in 1992, has now surpassed $1.5 million in awards to over 980 dependent children of its employees.

Awards for the school year 2010-11 included a total of $150,000 in new or renewed scholarships awarded to 107 students.

Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc. will release a new eight-ounce stand-up bag for its roasted pistachios in mid-October, company officials said.

Joseph Setton, the firm's vice president of sales and marketing, told The Produce News Sept. 22 that "the smaller pack size is attractive this year because of pricing," and added that the firm believes that this will help increase sales of pistachios that might otherwise be lower due to the downturn in the economy.