DEMAND

Demand for California melons continues to outpace light supplies. Persistent heat in the Midwest and along the East Coast could stress the local leaf crops and divert demand back to California.

TRANSPORTATION & FUEL

Truck availability on the West Coast is adequate. Freight rates should remain near the summer season’s peak heading into early August.

Olympic freestyle skier and Vancouver 2010 Silver Medalist Jeret (Speedy) Peterson died Monday, July 25, in a remote canyon between Salt Lake City and Park City, UT.

Authorities have called his death a suicide and said Mr. Peterson notified authorities of his location in Lamb’s

Ocean Mist Farms, based in Castroville, CA, completed the upgrade and expansion of its Baja Mist production facility in order to increase Mexico-grown product offerings. The company celebrated the opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 23 at the facility located in the Mexicali Valley of Mexico.

You can’t argue with the numbers. Domex Superfresh Growers, headquartered in Yakima, WA, is bracing for double-digit increases in its conventional and organic pear volumes this season.

Marketing and Communications Manager Loren Queen provided the snapshot. “Conventional pears will be up 15 percent,” he told The Produce News July 27.

By the time 2012 rolls around, Green Tree International will hit its fourth year benchmark brokering pears from the Pacific Northwest. The company is headquartered in Visalia, CA, and has a brokerage office in Wenatchee, WA.

Spotlight promotions are planned this pear season for the pre-ripened Concorde by Chelan Fresh Marketing in Chelan, WA, according to Vice President of Marketing Mac Riggan.

Mr. Riggan said July 27 that the dessert-sweet Concorde lends itself very well to pre-ripening, and he called the pear “one of the best-eating pieces of fruit you can find.”

He said, “It has a vanilla-almond essence when it’s ripe, and the flavor of the Concorde is just outstanding.”