When a member of Sam's Club enters one of the chain's more than 600 stores, he or she can go directly to a kiosk located at the front of the store, swipe a membership card and print out a handful of specially designed coupons.

TRENTON, NJ -- New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher announced at the end of June that the "Jersey Fresh" logo with the additional wording "Made with" is now available to companies that make food items using New Jersey's agricultural products.

Crunch Pak LLC, headquartered in Cashmere, WA, is expected to grow its sliced apple business, and the recent acquisition of Stemilt Growers' "AppleSweets" line is expected to reinforce Crunch Pak's growing volume. "We will certainly see an increase, we believe, of about 10 percent," Director of Marketing Tony Freytag told The Produce News June 28.

Some produce companies have referred to fresh fruits and vegetables as the best medicine there is, and it appears as if the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. Inc., better known simply as A&P, just might agree.

The retailer, one of the older chainstores in the nation, has added a fresh produce component to its "Live Better! Wellness Club."

Using patented laser technology, Temkin International Inc., a packaging firm based in Payson, UT, can customize the respiration characteristics of flexible packaging, effectively prolonging the shelf life of fresh produce by a number of days, according to a June 18 news release from the company.

Andrea Wagner has become the new vice president of fresh, and Jim Sarcletti was named the new director of produce, at Save-A-Lot, the discount chain affiliated with Supervalu Inc. and headquartered near St. Louis in Earth City, MO.

The Blue Book reported these changes earlier this month along with the departure of Mike Kemp, who joined Save-A-Lot in 2003 and was in charge of produce procurement as vice president of product segments.