WASHINGTON -- With the clock ticking on food-safety legislation, a Senate committee held its first hearing Oct. 22 where Tom Stenzel, United Fresh Produce Association's president and chief executive officer, urged Congress not to ease food-safety mandates for small farmers, but rather to offer assistance to help them comply with the new program.

After operating as a private company for the past six years, Dole Food Co. in Westlake Village, CA, went public once again Friday, Oct. 23, with an initial public offering of 35.7 million shares at $12.50 per share.

The offering was designed to raise almost $450 million in capital for the well-known food company.

Babe' Farms in Santa Maria, CA, has added Baby Lettuce Bouquet to its packaged baby head lettuce product lineup. This latest release is a collection of gourmet baby head lettuces combined with heads of elegant blonde baby frisee, packaged in convenient clamshell containers.

"The baby lettuces and platinum frisee are an attractive and savory combination," Ande Manos of Babe' Farms sales and marketing department said in a Sept. 30 press release. "Consumers are able to create a garden- fresh salad with specialty baby lettuces and accent it with tendrils of blonde frisee."

PHILADELPHIA -- If the new Philadelphia market were placed standing on its end, it would be 50 stories taller than New York's Empire State Building.

That tidbit, shared by Sonny DiCrecchio, general manager of the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market, who led an Oct. 20 tour of the market's construction, put a real perspective on the immensity of what in 10 months will become the world's largest, most-modern produce market. Tenants could possibly move into the market as soon as August, which would be two months ahead of schedule.

Strawberry growers up and down California were back in their fields the week of Oct. 19 trying to coax the plants back into production and capitalize on the hot market caused by the freak storm that raked the state the week before.

For the week ending Oct. 10, California produced about 3 million trays of strawberries and would have produced about the same the following week if not for the huge storm that hit the state's coastal regions Oct. 13-15.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) praised rule changes that will permit Florida citrus to be shipped to all 50 states once more. The U.S. Department of Agriculture published the rule change Oct. 22; it takes effect immediately.