“The [Central California onion] season has been delayed because of weather, but it should be a good year,” Jon Hyatt, a salesperson for Jim Hyatt Produce Co. Inc. in West Sacramento, CA, told The Produce News June 7.

A snapshot of the 2011 New Mexico onion crop season is a mixed bag. On the downside, the crop will be short this season, with volume reduction directly attributed to cold weather earlier this year. A front moved into the state at the beginning of February and brought with it temperatures well below zero.

The start of the fresh grape harvest in California’s San Joaquin Valley, which usually starts during the latter part of June, will be late again this year — for the second year in a row — as so many other fruit and vegetable crops in California have been, because of unusually cool spring weather.

As one grower quipped when asked about the early San Joaquin Valley grape deal, “There aren’t any early grapes in the San Joaquin Valley this year. They’re all late.”

Naturipe Farms has teamed up with The Balancing Act on Lifetime Television to promote the health, great taste and versatility of the summer’s fresh berries. The segment is scheduled to air June 23 and July 12, coinciding with the peak of the domestic blueberry season, Fourth of July and Back to School retail promotions. The popular cable morning show airs daily from 7-8 a.m. and is watched by over 2 million viewers.

MONTVALE, NJ — The Fresh Market, a supermarket chain headquartered in Greensboro, NC, professes to offer consumers a unique shopping experience, designing its stores to evoke an old-world charm with a warm and inviting atmosphere and superior customer service.

That quest for “unique” was entirely evident at a grand opening of its first Garden State location, held here June 15. Eschewing the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony, the chain instead cracked open an 85-pound wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

The harvest of California early garlic, which had been delayed due to unseasonably cool weather by anywhere from a few days to two weeks, was underway as of mid-June, with the late garlic harvest still about a month off.

New-crop Chinese peeled garlic had also started to arrive in the United States by mid-June, with whole fresh Chinese garlic scheduled to begin arriving within a few weeks.