Nearly 600 members of the Fresh Produce & Floral Council and friends met at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa Jan. 15 for the group?s annual dinner-dance.

The event was the forum used to introduce Pat McDowell of Perimeter Sales & Merchandising as chairman of the board for 2005.

The International Fresh-cut Produce Association has announced the addition of two nationally recognized business motivators " a best-selling author and a comedic entertainer " to headline the ExecTrends sessions at its upcoming Fresh-Cut Expo 2005, set for April 14-16 in Phoenix.

Feed the Children, a nonprofit humanitarian relief organization, recently received a large donation of shelf-stable "Mori-Nu? tofu from Morinaga Nutritional Foods in Torrance, CA, for tsunami relief in Southeast Asia.

Susan Bucher, director of marketing for Morinaga Nutritional Foods, said that the pallets of aseptically packaged, protein-rich silken tofu will be distributed to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that struck Indonesia.

SALINAS, CA " NewStar Fresh Foods LLC, based here, began shipping two-crown broccoli the week of Jan. 10.

The company introduced the two-crown broccoli at the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit 2004 in Anaheim, CA, in October. The rollout follows the company?s introduction of a three-crown broccoli in August.

OAKLAND, CA " Bananas, the most popular produce item in the United States, have a new player on the scene: Fair Trade-certified bananas from Uniban, a Colombia-based grower association.

The bananas are coming in through Turbana Corp., Uniban?s U.S. marketing arm based in Coral Gables, FL. The first shipments came in to the United States the week of Jan. 10.

Uniban attained Fair Trade certification through TransFair USA, a non-profit organization based here. TransFair is the only independent third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States.

Cary Crum, sales manager at D.J. Forry Co. in Reedley, CA, has announced that he is leaving Forry to start his own marketing company, Green Tree International Inc., in partnership with John Rast, owner of Rast Produce Co. Inc. in Visalia, CA.

The new company will be located in Visalia and will focus initially on developing marketing contracts with table grape growers in California and on building a year-round table grape program that includes imported product from Mexico, Chile and possibly Peru, Mr. Crum said.