Valley Fruit & Produce, a full-line wholesale distributor based in Los Angeles, announced the hiring of DON STALCUP as division manager and RAY IWAMOTO as berry category manager.

Stalcup has 46 years of retail produce experience, including 25 years at Albertsons as head of the produce department and the corporate trainer. After Albertsons, he served as vice president of produce for Food 4 Less, followed by a period serving in the same capacity for KV Mart.

At Valley, Stalcup is overseeing all aspects of retail management.

George Wooten, president of Wayne E. Bailey, headquartered in Chadbourn, NC, seems to always be coming up with some new way to utilize sweet potatoes, but this time he may have even outdone himself.

On Sept. 18, he told The Produce News that his daughter, Mary Margaret Wooten, was married to Anthony Lynn Nealey the previous weekend, and sweet potatoes had a lot to do with the affair.

On Sept. 20, Kelley Precythe, vice president of Southern Produce Distributors Inc., headquartered in Faison, NC, told The Produce News that the company was eagerly looking forward to exhibiting at the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit in New Orleans, Oct. 18-20. The company is a major grower, marketer and shipper of sweet potatoes, although it does delve into other fresh produce items.

Cup o' Cherries, innovative new packaging exclusive to Chelan Fresh Marketing of Chelan, WA, will be featured at Booth No. 4157 during October's PMA Fresh Summit in New Orleans.

Bi-Lo Holdings LLC will rebrand the Sweetbay and Reid's banners as Winn-Dixie and BI-LO respectively. The changes will take place following the close of its transaction with Delhaize Group in early 2014. Harveys will also be acquired as part of the same deal, but Bi-Lo will continue to use that banner.

Evaluations are under way to determine how much damage has been done to Chile's winter fruit crop as a result of recent frosts.

Mike Rodgers, director of East Coast operations for Giumarra Vineyards, told The Produce News Oct. 9 that "it is too early to tell" what damage cold weather has done in Chile. "Most of the damage is to stone fruit and cherries. Grapes have been hit, [but] we don't know how bad."

Rodgers, whose office is in Wilmington, DE, said there were two freezes six days apart.