The Washington Apple Commission has launched a new program designed to increase apple sales in the Indian cities of Chennai, Coimbatore and Bangalore. The program, "Washington Apples Banaye Aapko Maalamal Weekly," promotes the consumption of fresh apples in southern India.

"The goal of the campaign is to try to create excitement around Washington apples," Rebecca Baerveldt, export marketing manager for the commission, told The Produce News March 31. "One of the challenges we face in India is that 90 percent of apple sales are through small roadside vendors."

When the Florida Sweet Corn Exchange learned that the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services approved a request for a grant to support fresh sweet corn promotions this spring, the corn exchange began to reconsider how to spend its regular assessment for marketing activities. That's when exchange President Paul Allen started to think about charities.

Industry veteran Tristan Kieva has joined Delano, CA-based Pandol Bros. Inc. as its director of business development and marketing.

Ms. Kieva comes to Pandol Bros. from Consumer Effects International, where she was senior director of branding and marketing. She has spent more than 15 years in consumer marketing, with much of that time in the perishables industry. She has worked in Los Angeles for Paramount Farms Inc. and Sun Pacific Marketing Cooperative Inc. and was with Frieda's Inc. from 1999 to 2006.

Nestled in coastal California between the agriculturally rich Oxnard and Salinas districts, Santa Maria is sometimes considered an adjunct to one of those two growing regions. But it is an area with a long agricultural heritage and some unique characteristics that give the district its own identity.

The Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on March 17 published in the Federal Register an interim final rule with request for comments for a change in the marketing order grade standards under the California Desert Grape Administrative Committee, which growers said will facilitate packing two-pound clamshells.

Salinas, CA-based Colorful Harvest LLC won the blue ribbon for its flat of "Green Giant" brand fresh strawberries at the 2009 Florida Strawberry Festival held Feb. 26 to March 8 in Plant City, FL.

Colorful Harvest's strawberries were judged to be the best from among a field of 12 Florida strawberry growers based on the criteria of taste, uniformity, size, shape and color.

Doug Ranno, chief operating officer of Colorful Harvest, said that winning the blue ribbon is just more evidence that the company is a major player in the berry realm.