CHICAGO — The Miami headquarters of Infinite Herbs & Specialties is the firm’s key distribution point. It also has food-safe refrigerated warehouses in Chicago and Everett, MA.

Camilo Peñalosa, a partner in the company, noted that transportation efficiencies are critically important, especially when shipping light-density items like herbs.

Therefore, he indicated that sales along the long transportation corridors from Miami toward Chicago and the Boston area are very important. Of course sales surrounding those regional hubs are also critical to his company’s success.

CHICAGO — Food-safety assurance procedures are important to Steve Serck, a leading wholesaler on the Chicago International Produce Market and a board member of the Wholesaler-Distributor Board of the United Fresh Produce Association. At the market, Serck is president of JAB Produce, Jack Keller Co. and SAS Cartage LLC and acts as treasurer on the Chicago International Market Board of Directors.

Food-safety measures “are not a requirement yet by anybody,” he said. “But if someone gets sick” from food coming from the terminal market “it will hurt everybody.”

LIBERTYVILLE, IL — Success for a produce brokerage such as Muller Trading Co. Inc., “is all about providing more value,” according to Eric Muller, who started the company here in 2000. “It’s all about maintaining relationships and service. We have to provide service from start to finish.”

Transportation accounts for a broker’s problems “nine out of 10 times,” he said. His firm has been in business long enough to be associated with good trucking resources. Still, problems do arise. Then, “you do all you can to rectify the problem and you find ways to make the customer happy.”

David R. Peterson, a past president of the Texas Vegetable Association and a founding partner in Red Starr and Tex Starr Distributing of Alamo, TX, died while out of the country Sept. 7.

According to the dictionary, the word “imagine” means to “form a mental picture.” But it’s hard to imagine something you’ve never witnessed or experienced, like a child going hungry. Yet, for the one in five households in Texas, that struggle to afford enough food is a scary reality.

Anyone who knows Bernie Thiel knows he was born to farm. Anyone who doesn’t found out in August when Thiel and his Sunburst Farms near Lubbock, TX, were honored with the 2013 Texas Vegetable Association Award of Merit at the Texas Produce Convention in San Antonio.

Thiel typically attends the Texas Produce Convention alone. This year his entire family was on hand for the festivities. It was fortuitous timing.

“I could not ask for more,” Thiel said. “To have my whole family here is reward enough, but to be recognized by my peers is just really special.”