Produce veterans returning to radio
Produce veterans returning to radio
SALINAS, CA -- It's been more than three years since the nationally syndicated radio show "The Produce Pair" has been heard on the radio. For San Francisco Bay area listeners, that drought is about to end.
Produce industry veteran Dan (The Produce Man) Avakian and radio partner Mark (Guido the Gardener) Ferro are teaming up again to return to the airwaves in late October or early November. This time the duo will air on KTRB (860 AM), a 50,000-watt station based in San Francisco.
Though at the outset the program won't be syndicated nationally, a podcast of each show will be available for downloading at www.producepair.com.
"The Produce Pair" show aired on more than 60 radio stations nationwide on the now-defunct Talk America Radio Network from March 1998 to April 2005. The show aired for an hour every Saturday morning, with fresh produce tips for consumers, and interviews with local and national TV chefs and nutritionists, with irreverent, off-the-cuff banter between the hosts mixed in.
In May 2006, Mr. Avakian purchased an open-air market -- Dan's Fresh Produce -- in Alameda, CA, where he got his start in fresh produce in 1976 at age 15. In June, Dan's Fresh Produce won "Best Produce Stand" in the East Bay by the East Bay Express weekly newspaper. Currently, Dan's Fresh Produce has been nominated for "Best Produce Market" for the entire San Francisco Bay area on BayList, a site launched by SFGate.com, the on-line site of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Where once "The Produce Pair" show broadcast on location from various sites, this time around the show will broadcast live solely from Dan's Fresh Produce. Mr. Avakian used to engineer the programs, a task that he admits burned him out and contributed to the show's demise.
"All the production work was done [previously]," Mr. Avakian said. "We have all the music and we're handing over production to KTRB."
Mr. Avakian has 80 produce-themed songs for the show on MP3 files and has put together several hours of non-stop "Veggie Tunes" that he pipes into his store occasionally. Those include Rosemary Clooney singing "Mangos," Elvis Presley singing "Queenie Wahine's Papayas" and Spike Jones singing "Yes! We Have No Bananas."
Mr. Avakian also is an on-line columnist for the culinary web site www.beyondwonderful.com.
Mr. Ferro is employed as a produce specialist by natural foods retail giant Whole Foods Market for the northern Pacific region. He also writes a produce column for the Alameda-based Hills Newspaper Inc. family of newspapers.
Produce industry veteran Dan (The Produce Man) Avakian and radio partner Mark (Guido the Gardener) Ferro are teaming up again to return to the airwaves in late October or early November. This time the duo will air on KTRB (860 AM), a 50,000-watt station based in San Francisco.
Though at the outset the program won't be syndicated nationally, a podcast of each show will be available for downloading at www.producepair.com.
"The Produce Pair" show aired on more than 60 radio stations nationwide on the now-defunct Talk America Radio Network from March 1998 to April 2005. The show aired for an hour every Saturday morning, with fresh produce tips for consumers, and interviews with local and national TV chefs and nutritionists, with irreverent, off-the-cuff banter between the hosts mixed in.
In May 2006, Mr. Avakian purchased an open-air market -- Dan's Fresh Produce -- in Alameda, CA, where he got his start in fresh produce in 1976 at age 15. In June, Dan's Fresh Produce won "Best Produce Stand" in the East Bay by the East Bay Express weekly newspaper. Currently, Dan's Fresh Produce has been nominated for "Best Produce Market" for the entire San Francisco Bay area on BayList, a site launched by SFGate.com, the on-line site of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Where once "The Produce Pair" show broadcast on location from various sites, this time around the show will broadcast live solely from Dan's Fresh Produce. Mr. Avakian used to engineer the programs, a task that he admits burned him out and contributed to the show's demise.
"All the production work was done [previously]," Mr. Avakian said. "We have all the music and we're handing over production to KTRB."
Mr. Avakian has 80 produce-themed songs for the show on MP3 files and has put together several hours of non-stop "Veggie Tunes" that he pipes into his store occasionally. Those include Rosemary Clooney singing "Mangos," Elvis Presley singing "Queenie Wahine's Papayas" and Spike Jones singing "Yes! We Have No Bananas."
Mr. Avakian also is an on-line columnist for the culinary web site www.beyondwonderful.com.
Mr. Ferro is employed as a produce specialist by natural foods retail giant Whole Foods Market for the northern Pacific region. He also writes a produce column for the Alameda-based Hills Newspaper Inc. family of newspapers.
