Five years ago, C&C Produce began supplying one of the government commissaries with a full line of produce. At present, the company services a total of six commissaries: Fort Leavenworth, Fort Leonardwood, Fort Riley, Offutt Air Force Base, Whiteman Air Force Base and McConnell Air Force Base.

A busload of retailers, foodservice operators, suppliers and allied industry toured the Salinas Valley as part of a Fresh Produce & Floral Council tour held Wednesday, June 1.

The tour was designed to give retail and foodservice personnel a first-hand look at the production element of some of the products they sell and promote.

Three operations -- California Florida Plant Co., California Giant and Monterey Mushrooms -- were included in the full-day program.

PENNS GROVE, NJ -- With a cool spring pushing back the start of the New Jersey vegetable season by 10 days to two weeks so far this year, Boston lettuce, asparagus and hothouse tomatoes were about the only Jersey items in the produce department at the Incollingo's Family Market store here in mid-May.

But that will all change as spring turns into summer, when this store will put Jersey produce items figuratively -- and literally -- front and center.

Scott Gorczyca gets a kick out of just about everything he does, including his new job in sales at Baloian Packing in Fresno, CA.

The former fullback at Arizona State University in Tempe tackles every task with enthusiasm, whether it's promoting the full line of commodities for the grower-shipper-packer he joined this spring or when he would help his father shoe horses as a youngster back in Arizona, where he grew up.

Government, public relations and industry experts will be on hand June 28 when the Produce Marketing Association offers a Fresh Produce Academy webinar entitled "Taste, Convenience, Profits: Marketing the New Dietary Guidelines to Increase Produce Consumption."

The webinar will explore the marketing potential of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans released earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The updated dietary guidelines strongly emphasize that consumers increase their daily intake of fruits and vegetables.

Watermelon volumes were building just before the Memorial Day holiday, with volumes expected to be adequate for demand in the early days of June.

Watermelon prices on the verge of the Memorial Day holiday were "substantially higher" than those of the Memorial Day of 2004, "although prices are higher because there is not enough volume, Lloyd Rosen of Wm. Manis Produce Marketing Co. in Plant City, FL, said May 24.