Baloian Farms recently introduced a value-added new product in the fresh veg category featuring yellow and green squash with a seasoning packet included. The new product is expected to drive a higher margin and new sales in the vegetable category year-round.

Mann Packing Co. recently hired two experienced produce industry professionals in sales and marketing roles to help manage the company’s continued growth. Lori Bigras joined the company as a marketing manager, and Larry Narwold joined as Southeast regional sales manager, foodservice.

Total exports of Hass avocados from Mexico into the United States in 2012-13 were a record 517,896 metric tons, up 40 percent from the prior crop year, which in turn topped the previous year by 26 percent, according to APEAM, the association of growers and exporting packers in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

Michael Strock’s great-great grandfather, Samuel Strock, founded S. Strock & Co. Inc. in 1897, shortly after emigrating from Germany. Today the company is located at the New England Produce Center in Chelsea, MA.

“Samuel Strock began by buying local produce and selling it to customers from a horse-drawn wagon, and he hired a man to help with the deliveries,” said Strock. “Our roots extend to decades earlier, when the market was located at the now historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston.”

Located in the Chelsea market area in Boston, Baldor Boston services Massachusetts’ North Shore and South Shore regions (except for Cape Cod), southern Massachusetts as far west as Worcester from Southern New Hampshire —Manchester and Portsmouth — and Rhode Island.

Its parent company, Baldor Specialty Foods in the Bronx, NY, is a leading distributor of a full line of conventional, organic and specialty foods, and it feeds the Boston facility with the same high-quality products it offers its customers further south.

Progressive Produce Corp. in Los Angeles and Mission Produce Inc. in Oxnard, CA, jointly announced that Progressive has acquired Mission's asparagus business.

The deal, which involves supplies from Mexico and includes the servicing of Mission's customers, is effective immediately and significantly increases Progressive's presence in fresh asparagus.