Cool weather in California’s Imperial Valley has meant a slower start than usual to the watermelon season for Pappas & Co. in Mendota, CA, with full volume not expected to come on until around June 5, according to sales manager Rodney Van Bebber.

Pappas grows picnic, icebox, seedless and yellow-flesh watermelons on 240 acres in the California desert and 400 acres in Central California — and has for going on 75 years. The Central California deal is expected to begin on time, Mr. Van Bebber said.

Arnold Mack, owner of McMelon Inc. in Lake Wales, FL, has plenty of watermelons, but like all early-season growers this year, he is waiting for demand to arrive. A cool and rainy spring in the Northeast has hampered watermelon sales so far this season.

This year, for the first time, all the watermelon farms associated with Keith Connell Inc. will have their food-safety procedures audited by third parties.

The watermelon market has been soft this spring with cool, rainy weather in the Northeast and bumper crops coming from Mexico, Texas and Florida. But Bob Gibson of Gibson Produce & Watermelon Sales LLC in Vero Beach, FL, believes things will turn around after Memorial Day as the early oversupply wanes.

Despite a slow start to the season due to a “terrible” market and bad weather in the Northeast, Brent Harrison of Al Harrison Co. Distributors in Nogales, AZ, thinks that as spring oversupplies dwindle and weather improves, the market will achieve at least “a happy medium.”

L&M Cos., based in Raleigh, NC, announced that it has expanded its Palatka, FL, potato operations.

The expansion features an additional 11,000 square feet of cooler space; a 35-40 percent increase in potato acreage; and a new optical sorter and high-capacity line, which will enable L&M to double capacity while efficiently grading out 95 percent of the defects by machine and the rest by hand.

To improve L&M’s one-stop shop capabilities, the facility can pack russets and all three colored varieties simultaneously.