In the wake of the prolonged mid-January freeze that devastated much of California's citrus crop, a rumor spread that Booth Ranches LLC in Orange Cove, CA, had thrown in the towel for the remainder of the season on its orange harvesting and laid off its entire sales and marketing team. Not so, according to Loren Booth, the company's general manager.

Although Booth Ranches did suffer severe losses to its on-tree citrus crop and did lay off a portion of its marketing staff, the company continues to harvest and pack fruit and continues to do its own marketing.

PakSense Inc. announced that industry veteran Doug Thurston has joined the Boise, ID-based company as director of North American sales.

Mr. Thurston comes to PakSense from Bolthouse Farms in Bakersfield, CA, where he was director of sales since 2002. He was also employed for more than 20 years by Albertson's, where he served at various regional locations in a number of roles including procurement manager, buyer, produce manager and in quality control.

Bruce Peterson, who has become synonymous with Wal-Mart in the fresh produce arena, announced that he has resigned his position as senior vice president and general merchandise manager of perishables and will leave the company at the end of this month.

Declining demand because of cold weather and higher retail prices has caused most f.o.b. prices for vegetables to drop during the first week of February except for celery, which has seen the price skyrocket.

On Feb. 7, the USDA's Federal-State Market News Service reported shipping- point prices of a two-dozen count carton celery at around $32, which is $10 to $12 more than a week earlier. This happened as f.o.b. prices on cauliflower, broccoli, leaf items and many other vegetables dropped 25-40 percent.

Yakima, WA-based Sage Fruit Co. and The Dalles, OR-based Oregon Cherry Growers have announced a joint-venture packing company, Pacific Coast Cherry Packers, to pack and ship both companies' fresh cherries.

The new packingline and facility located on Valley Fruit's site in Wapato, WA, will feature a jointly owned Van Doren cherry line and will be fully operational and equipped for fumigation for the upcoming 2007 cherry crop.

That big collective groan you heard was from produce industry trade journalists across the country reacting to the news that Bruce Peterson is leaving Wal-Mart.

There will be much written about Mr. Peterson's impact on Wal-Mart and the produce industry. He held a lofty position for more than 15 years and helped guide the perishable component of Wal-Mart's meteoric rise during his tenure there. He came aboard when there were six Wal-Mart supercenters selling fresh produce. He is leaving at the end of this month with 2,258 supercenters under his watch.