Salinas, CA-based Mann Packing Co. has been famously known for its broccoli for more than a generation in the produce industry.

In fact, it was more than two decades ago that it chided then President George Bush for his public diss of the item by sending him a truckload of broccoli.

Today, Mann still considers broccoli its signature item, but the firm has expanded in many other directions, most notably down various value-added paths.

COMMERCE CITY, CO — While still moving product from across the country and out of Mexico, Ringer & Son brokerage in the Denver metro area is also transitioning into Colorado produce as well.

Sales agent Deb Pate, who works the Texas Valley and Colorado potatoes, peaches and apples, said during the second week of May that cabbage, limes, mangos, onions, peppers and tomatoes out of Texas, and coming in from Mexico, were moving well.

With a primary objective of building awareness for the nutritional value and versatility of traditional, no-sugar-added dried fruit, and with the specific immediate goal of keeping dried fruits in government food assistance programs, the California raisin, dried plum, dried fig and date industries came together in late 2008 to form the California Dried Fruit Coalition.

For the 74th consecutive year, the Grower-Shipper Association will host a three-day jubilee of events to celebrate the induction of a new chairwoman of the board, Margaret D'Arrigo-Martin, and the Central Coast Agricultural industry.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — By an overwhelming 90-8 vote, the U.S. Senate pushed away the last procedural hurdle this morning to begin the debate on the 2012 Farm Bill.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), the Committee's ranking member, will manage the debate on the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012 (S. 3240). The measure, which is estimated to save $23 billion over 10 years, is likely to become a lightning rod for scores of amendments on farm policy.

Bill Nardelli, president of Nardelli Bros. Inc., in Cedarville, NJ, told The Produce News that truckers have been at the bottom of the totem pole in importance for years. But today they’re in the driver’s seat.

“We have been in transportation since my father started this business in 1941,” said Mr. Nardelli. “If you have the ability to deliver your own product and get it to your customers in the freshest possible condition, you have a huge advantage.”

Mr. Nardelli said that wholesalers and retailers don’t want to buy full loads today, and they’re buying close to the chest.