The families of three elderly women who died after eating spinach allegedly tainted with E. coli bacteria have reached a settlement with Natural Selection Foods, Mission Organics, Dole Food Co. and its subsidiary Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc.

The three women -- Betty Howard, 83, of Richland, WA; June Dunning, 86, of Hagerstown, MD; and Ruby Trautz, 81, of Bellevue, NE -- were hospitalized and later died of complications that their lawyer said could be traced back to the E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 200 people nationwide in August and September of 2006.

Litehouse Inc., based in Sandpoint, ID, plans to showcase its new organic products at this year's United Fresh Produce Association convention and trade show, dubbed United Fresh Marketplace.

Litehouse will exhibit in booth No. 9635 and will be represented by owners, a sales director and the marketing team, Director of Brand Marketing Paul Kusche told The Produce News.

The family-owned business markets a full line of salad dressings, dips, marinades and toppings throughout the United States and Canada to health- conscious citizens in both countries.

While he applauds the industry's current efforts with regard to food safety initiatives, former Wal-Mart produce executive Bruce Peterson believes that at least the same amount of energy should be spent on developing a sophisticated trace-back program.

"The problem in my mind is not food safety. The problem is the consumer reaction to an isolated outbreak in a given commodity," he said.

New findings scheduled to be released during the FreshTech Produce Safety Summit prove that HealthPro Brands' Fit Fruit & Vegetable wash outperforms chlorine by killing 99.9999 percent of harmful bacteria in dirty processing water.

In the first test of its kind, a collaborative Washington State University and the University of Idaho study tested the effectiveness of Fit vs. chlorine dioxide to see whether either product provided a "kill step" of gram-negative bacteria (those associated with food-borne illnesses such as salmonella and E. coli) in dirty flume water.

Two days worth of chef demonstrations at the American Culinary Federation Western Regional Conference in Couer d'Alene, ID, included one of the region's more prominent commodities, the Idaho-eastern Oregon onion.

According to Sherise Jones, marketing director for the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee based in Parma, ID, the event was held April 15-17 and was coordinated by Idaho Preferred, a state branding promotional division of the Idaho Department of Agriculture.

BOSTON -- The theme of "Hollywood Days/Hollywood Nights" was quite appropriate for this year's New England Produce Council Produce & Floral Expo, April 25 here at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, as it was the produce industry that took center stage at the annual event.