LOS ANGELES -- Gourmet Trading Co. announced the third week in September that the purple asparagus season in Peru has started. Both 11- pound and five-pound boxes are available and ready for promotion in the retail and foodservice sectors.

Domex Superfresh Growers, based in Yakima, WA, will be unveiling two new product packaging options at this year's Produce Marketing Association convention and trade show, Oct. 2-5 in Anaheim, CA.

The company will exhibit at booth No. 3473. With thousands of acres of the hugely popular Honeycrisp apple coming into production, Domex has created a high-graphic Euro box dedicated to marketing the variety.

Salinas, CA -- River Ranch Fresh Foods LLC recently expanded its senior management team to include two industry veterans, one in the area of sales and marketing and the other in the area of agricultural operations.

Bravante Produce, a well-known grower-shipper in the California citrus industry, is the newest member of Sunkist Growers, the grower-owned citrus marketing cooperative headquartered in Sherman Oaks, CA.

CORAL GABLES, FL -- Del Monte Fresh Produce Co. N.A. Inc. , a subsidiary of Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., a leading vertically integrated producer, marketer and distributor of high-quality fresh and fresh-cut fruit and vegetables, launched Sept. 23 its new vending line of healthy snack alternatives at the National Automated Merchants Convention in Chicago.

The line, which features specially packaged bananas and fresh-cut fruit and vegetables, offers vending operators a solution to meet society's growing demand for healthy snacks in vending machines.

About six years ago, Ralph Laderoot III, a salesman and buyer for Ben B. Schwartz & Sons Inc. in Detroit, returned to where he had grown up after living in Arizona for several years.

"As I was graduating from high school, my dad was moving to Arizona," said Mr. Laderoot. "I was looking for a change of scenery after spending my life in Michigan, so I moved with him. I tried my hand at several careers for a few years. I was an electrician, and for a while my brother and I had a landscaping company."