PHILADELPHIA --- First lady Michelle Obama delighted customers and employees when she visited The Fresh Grocer at Progress Plaza Friday afternoon, Feb. 19, accompanied by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The first lady was in town to outline her "Let's Move" campaign to reduce childhood obesity nationwide.

With early-season shipments of California avocados underway and volume expected to increase in February and March, the California Avocado Commission expects broad availability from April through September and plans for a marketing campaign to support the fruit nationwide.

One thousand, two hundred and three. That is the number of disputes resolved in the past 10 years by the Fruit & Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corp.

The Ottawa-based organization, which was incorporated Oct. 7, 1999, and officially opened its doors for business Feb. 1, 2000, has grown from about 250 members at its onset to nearly 1,300, and those members -- and the produce industry in general -- have reaped the rewards that the DRC has provided over the past decade.

The president of Syngenta Seed Vegetables began a dialogue with the retail community earlier this month in an effort to combine what he called "food science" with "consumer science" to build fruit and vegetable varieties that better fit the needs of the ultimate buyer.

In 1999, U.S. consumption of grapefruit reached an all-time high. A decade later, totals stand at half that glorious peak. One-third of growers have abandoned production in the past 10 years, and some even question the future of white grapefruit as a viable commodity.

What happened?

The Florida citrus industry would love a simple answer to that question. While grapefruit sales overall have plummeted - 80 percent of Americans never touch the stuff. The bottom has literally dropped out of the market for white grapefruit.

The California Tree Fruit Agreement in Reedley, CA, has selected Gary Van Sickle as its next president following the departure of Sherrie Mierau in December. The appointment was announced in a Feb. 17 press release.