Dicey weather has been a wild card for California’s late-variety blueberry producers this season. Alexander Ott, executive director of the California Blueberry Commission, summed things up this way. “Right now, we’re concerned about weather,” he told The Produce News April 4. “We’re really curious how this will translate to pollination.”

After two years of above-normal precipitation in California, and with snowpack in the Sierra Mountains from the 2010-11winter season at 165 percent of normal, making it the third wettest winter in more than 40 years, California Gov. Jerry Brown on March 30 declared the state's drought officially over.

Anyone who has seen the new Florida citrus television commercials knows that the campaign is a critical hit. Whether they will drive orange juice sales or not remains to be seen, but the sharp, witty series of TV ads — pitched at modern moms, dads and suburban households — are a crowd pleaser.

But the new campaign was hardly assured of any such status when it was unveiled last summer at the annual

Mayda Sotomayor-Kirk, chief executive officer of Vero Beach, FL-based Seald Sweet International, will be the guest speaker at the United Fresh Produce Association’s annual Reception Honoring Women in Produce, Tuesday, May 2, at United Fresh 2011 in New Orleans.

WASHINGTON -- Consumers and the food industry will be able to better search for product recalls under a new web tool released April 4 by the Food & Drug Administration.

“Recalls, mandatory or otherwise, are serious and we must do everything possible to make it easier for people to know about these recalls so they can take all appropriate steps to protect themselves and their families,” Mike Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, said while publicizing the new database.  

WASHINGTON -- Companies that handle fresh cilantro received an unwelcome warning March 31 when the Food & Drug Administration wrote the industry about an increase in Salmonella-positive samples.

Since 2004, the FDA has confirmed Salmonella in 28 samples of fresh cilantro from U.S. and foreign sources, Michael Landa, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, wrote in a March 31 letter to companies that handle cilantro.