“It’s been a tough year. We’ve tried to keep our heads down and develop some new strategies. We’ve right-sized and re-thought our operations, and we’re going to reemerge at WF&FSA (the Wholesale Florist & Florist Distribution Association conference in Miami Oct. 24-26) with a new look-new products and a new marketing campaign.”

That’s the assessment of Marlene Mitchell, vice president of operations at Sunburst Farms in Miami, who recently took over downsized operations there after its president, Geno Valdes, left. Ms. Mitchell said in a July 12 phone interview that she has retained her operations title while taking on additional duties due to the departure of Mr. Valdes. “We have a smaller staff now,” she said.

Mr. Valdes led a management-backed buyout of Sunburst Farms about a year ago, and told The Produce News an interview at the International Floriculture Expo in Miami Beach in late June that he had left the company to explore other career possibilities, including cold-chain certification programs.

Mr. Valdes said some of the firm’s supplier farms in South America, which were not part of the buyout, were struggling financially and that Sunburst had a headquarters facility that was costly to maintain and operate. Under those circumstances, he said, he felt he should leave and pursue other opportunities. Ms. Mitchell, in the July 12 interview, said there were no plans to sell the Sunburst facility in Miami.

In January 2009, Advantage Capital Partners, a venture capital firm with an office in Winter Park, FL, and several private investors including Juan Carlos Hannaford, head of The Elite Flower in Miami, purchased Sunburst Farms, an importer and distributor of fresh-cut flowers, from the Nannetti family. The buyout was led by Mr. Valdes.

The Nannetti family had purchased what it renamed Sunburst Farms from Dole Food Co. (who had bought an earlier incarnation of Sunburst Farms in 1998). Mr. Valdes had then returned to Sunburst as president in July 2009. He had also headed the company a decade earlier.

Mario Nannetti, whose family owned the privately held company, had founded the original Sunburst Farms in the late 1960s along with the late Peter Hannaford, the father of Juan Carlos Hannaford.