The produce industry?s top growers and suppliers have joined together once again to organize the Don Strock Diabetes Classic, one of South Florida?s longer-running celebrity/amateur charity golf tournaments, which benefits the Diabetes Research Institute.

Two years ago, Progeny Advanced Genetics of Salinas pledged to keep alive the memory of John (Delta John) Gill, one of the Salinas Valley's more respected agricultural leaders, who died from Lou Gehrig's Disease (also known as ALS) in 2001.

On Wednesday, March 30, 2005, that promise was kept for a second year with the presentation of a second $10,000 check to the Community Foundation for Monterey County to be used for the John Gill ALS Patient Support Fund. The donation represents a portion of 2004 sales of Progeny's Delta John lettuce variety.

If you didn?t notice the macron (the long mark) over the "a? on the new fresh apple product being marketed in chainstores all over America, you would probably pronounce it stressing the "apple? portion of the word.

But the new "Grapple? brand apple does have a long mark on the "a? and is pronounced with the emphasis on "grape."

In the event that one forgets the proper pronunciation, the aroma of the product quickly corrects the error. The new Grapple product has a very strong scent of the Concord grape flavor, in which it has been dipped.

Ron Burkle, who has made a fortune buying and selling supermarket stock as well as supermarkets themselves, has made major stock investments in Pathmark Stores and Wild Oats Markets in the past few months, leading to much speculations about the future of those operations.

MONTEREY, CA " The Culinary Center of Monterey, here on Cannery Row, is gaining recognition not just for teaching budding chefs how to ply their craft but also for bringing a sense of togetherness to visiting businesses.

In its four-plus years, CCM?s corporate team-building service has attracted clients as diverse as the Pentagon, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Driscoll Strawberry Associates Inc. Mary Pagan, executive chef and owner of CCM, figures that more than 15,000 people have cooked in CCM?s kitchens.

A drop in fresh potato prices from an already low five-year average of 4.9 cents per pound to just 3.85 cents per pound for the 2003 season is in large measure a result of a flood of low-priced processed french fries coming into the U.S. domestic market from Canada, according to the Idaho potato industry.

Industry representatives, under the auspices of Potato Growers of Idaho, recently petitioned the federal government for financial assistance in compensation for the losses they incurred due to the depressed markets.