YOUNG HARRIS, GA -- Close to 200 people gathered Sept. 25-27 for the Southeast Produce Council's 2008 fall conference, highlighted by the election of new officers, a workshop on the state of the economy, a golf tournament and plenty of social networking events.

ARLINGTON, VA -- The Food Marketing Institute's CEO Search Committee announced Oct. 3 its selection of Leslie G. Sarasin as president and chief executive officer.

Ms. Sarasin will be presented to the FMI board at its October meeting in Boston, and she will start at FMI in early November.

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of the Salmonella saintpaul outbreak, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration is holding two public meetings this fall to gather information on ways to enhance traceability systems for fresh produce.

The daylong meetings are planned for Oct. 16 at FDA's College Park, MD, office and for Nov. 13 at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, CA.

It is said that good things come in threes, and that is certainly the case at Railex LLC.

With diesel fuel prices at an all-time high and with no relief in sight, the firm, a division of Riverhead, NY-based ADS Management LLC, is putting the finishing touches on its third state-of-the-art "freight-forward" distribution terminal in Delano, CA.

Paul Esposito, Railex's senior vice president of sales and logistics, told The Produce News Sept. 22 that its first Delano train is scheduled to depart Oct. 2 for its Rotterdam, NY, terminal.

Even in poor economic conditions, people have to eat. But in our society, they have a great bit of discretion concerning how they spend their food dollars, and there is some evidence that supermarkets are benefiting during these difficult times.

Michigan authorities quickly named prepackaged lettuce sold by Detroit wholesaler Aunt Mid's Produce Co. as the likely cause of 30 illnesses there, but company President Dominic Riggio says not so fast.

The Michigan Department of Community Health issued a Sept. 26 statement that identified industrial-sized packages of Iceberg lettuce as the most likely cause of 30 cases of E. coli poisoning around the state. Six other people in Illinois found to be suffering from the same E. coli fingerprint have been linked to the same outbreak.