WASHINGTON -- A new policy by the Food & Drug Administration may force fresh-cut processors to conduct costly lot testing for Listeria.

The FDA announced in February a new policy that would loosen the zero- tolerance policy for Listeria in some ready-to-eat foods. While food processors hailed the new risk-based policy as a step toward harmonizing with other trading partners, the United Fresh Produce Association said that fresh-cut processors might be hurt by the new draft compliance policy guide.

Keystone Fruit Marketing, based in Greencastle, PA, has teamed with J. Cowart Farms in Lyons, GA, to market Cowart's "Vidalia Sugar Sweets" sweet onions from the famed Vidalia, GA, onion-growing district.

PHILADELPHIA -- After seven years of ups and downs with regard to the prospect of building a new wholesale produce market here, it appears that a viable site has been procured and that groundbreaking will occur as early as this summer.

WILMINGTON, DE -- The Produce for Better Health Foundation has announced the appointment of Theresa Kaufmann as its new manager of development.

Richard Guzman, a salesman at Go-Fresh Produce Inc. on the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market for the last seven years and a 27-year veteran of the Los Angeles wholesale produce industry, died of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital March 12. He was 49.

As I travel the country representing the New Jersey Farm Bureau and New Jersey's farmers, I'm proud to tell people I'm from the great Garden State of New Jersey. And I too often get jokes about the turnpike and questions about what we grow here amidst our cities and shopping malls.

While it's true that New Jersey is smack-dab between New York and Philadelphia, peppered with suburbs, we also have assets nothing short of remarkable: amazing garden oases, the very reason we are called the Garden State.