As the first shipments of Navel oranges from Chile are arriving in U.S. ports on both coasts, the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association is launching a media campaign to build consumer awareness for the latest addition to the summer citrus mix.

Navel oranges will be joining the successful clementine deal, now in its third year, with the first grapefruits scheduled to arrive in September. Lemons and mandarins round out Chile's citrus offerings.

Coastline Produce, based in Salinas, CA, and RedLine Solutions announced the successful launch of a pilot project this summer to enable Produce Traceability Initiative compliance across Coastline's product line.

The driver for PTI compliance at Coastline is to assure Coastline's current and future customers -- and ultimately consumers -- of the safety and wholesomeness of their food supply.

BOGOT?, COLOMBIA -- South America's largest agricultural exhibition, XVII Agroexpo Corferias 2009, which opened here July 16 and was scheduled to run through July 26, targeted Colombia's various agricultural production entities and was expected to draw more than 300,000 people.

At Bolivia's booth was F?lix Herrera, president of Asociaci?n de Productores Ecol?gicos Primero Aroma, or APEPA, which is based in Catavi in southern Bolivia. Mr. Herrera said that APEPA involves 650 families from 20 communities surrounding Catavi.

Richard Leibowitz is looking forward to the Produce Marketing Association's Foodservice Conference & Exposition.

Mr. Leibowitz, managing director of the newly formed Specialty Potato Alliance, based in Mountainside, NJ, told The Produce News that the organization will use the conference to introduce its products and its founding members, who are comprised of North America's premier growers and distributors of specialty potatoes.

Agricultural producers in northeast Colorado weathered a powerful thunderstorm that slammed into the suburbs of Denver Monday, July 20. It has been unusually wet in Colorado this year, and monsoon-like thunderstorms have spawned tornados and put residents on high alert since May.

Alan Kinoshita, sales manager for Fagerberg Produce in Eaton, CO, said that the company was gearing up for onion clipping when the storm struck Monday morning.

"We got close to two inches of rain," he told The Produce News. "The onions will be fine. It will set clipping back a few days."

Using fresh U.S. pears as their inspiration, and competition to be the best among their peers as motivation, three U.S. culinary students were chosen as finalists in the Pear Bureau Northwest's first U.S. student culinary competition. All three students prepared their creations for a panel of judges in an American Idol-style presentation at the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, OR.