Grant Oswalt, a senior sales representative at Salinas, CA-based Coastline, died Friday evening, Jan. 11, after a brief illness.

Mr. Oswalt spent some 25 years in the fresh produce industry, having joined the Coastline sales team in October 2005, where he was a senior sales representative. Mr. Oswalt came to Coastline from produce broker Fresh Network in Salinas.

Prior to that, he had been a sales manager at Duda's California operations, Salyer American Fresh Foods Inc., Capurro Farms and Apio Inc., all in California.

Deal-making was his game, and now the citrus industry is likely to be his fame. When 29-year-old Patrick Norris was interviewed by David Mixon, chief marketing officer, and Mayda Sotomayor, chief executive officer, of Seald Sweet, headquartered in Vero Beach, FL, they expressed enthusiasm over the prospect of welcoming into the industry a young person who did not have experience in the produce industry.

Dole Fresh Fruit and Dole Fresh Vegetables, subsidiaries of Dole Food Co. Inc., announced enhancements to their marketing operations.

Yvonne Rentmeester has been promoted to the position of marketing services manager for Dole Fresh Fruit. In this position, Ms. Rentmeester will expand her role currently managing the technical services department to encompass banana ripening and product handling from warehouse all the way through the retail store. She will assume direct responsibility for Dole Fresh Fruit's marketing representatives and the merchandising program.

As the U.S. presidential primary races continue, one of the debate topics has been "change." The candidates are being challenged with questions about change. But how will any changes influence business, especially the food industry?

What will happen in produce? Do growers, shippers and retailers have any idea of what lies ahead? Is change expected to have an impact on today's management, or will it be business as usual?

The benefits of using carbon dioxide to displace oxygen and ethylene in a pallet of strawberries during shipment has long been known, and the technique of enclosing the pallet in a bag and flushing out the oxygen and ethylene by using carbon dioxide has been widely used in the strawberry industry for some 25 years.

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ -- Nearly 1,000 attendees came to network, learn and see the newest products and services available to vegetable growers from over 100 speakers and vendors at the Atlantic Coast Agricultural Convention & Trade Show, held here Jan. 15-17 at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort and sponsored by the Vegetable Growers Association of New Jersey.

Originally known as the New Jersey Annual Vegetable Meeting & Trade Show, the annual event used the aptly phrased slogan for this year's convention, "Making changes. Growing stronger."