With its starfruit program ramping up for the season, Homestead, FL-based Brooks Tropicals has introduced a new clamshell pack for the product that will improve shipping and merchandising.

"The launch of our new starfruit StarPac was timed with the season revving up," said Mary Ostlund, director of marketing for the company. "The package is being released in August. It's basically a clamshell with two divisions for one starfruit each."

Mike Martin, president of Rio Queen Citrus Inc. in Mission, TX, said that the company is making the best of a bad situation following a June 11 fire that destroyed the company's main office and citrus packingshed.

"What is most important is that we take care of our commitment to our customers," Mr. Martin told The Produce News July 21. "We're emphasizing rebuilding and making everything more efficient."

Backyard Farms LLC, one of the larger New England greenhouse growers of vine-ripened tomatoes, announced that it would begin construction of its second greenhouse in Madison, ME, this fall. Approximately 75 new workers will be hired for the facility next spring.

The California citrus industry, in cooperation with the California Department of Food & Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, SAGARPA (the Mexican ministry of agriculture) and other agencies, has gone into a full- court-press defensive posture in an effort to delay the entrance into California of a tiny insect pest called the Asian citrus psyllid after the pest was found June 26 in citrus trees in Tijuana, Mexico, just four blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border.

WASHINGTON -- Tomato growers will get a chance to tell their stories about the millions of dollars lost during what they call a botched investigation into the recent Salmonella outbreak at two congressional hearings scheduled for the last week of July.