RPE is one of four Wisconsin potato producers that supplied potatoes as part of a donation to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, encourages domestic retailers to secure their spud supplies as soon as possible. His sage words are directly tied to the fact that the Evergreen State is seeing increases in export volume.

Growing up in Long Island, NY, in the town of Holtsville, Megan Rebollal has used some fancy footwork to land at Railex, a provider of transportation and logistics services for produce loads that traverse the country. An account representative, she works in Riverhead, NY, where the firm shares space with sister company Hapco, a produce grower-shipper-distributor.

The Fresh Wave LLC is currently undergoing a major expansion program that is increasing the number of sources and inventories it maintains, Tommy Consalo, vice president of the Vineland, NJ-based company told The Produce News.

“We have outstanding new partnerships,” said Mr. Consalo. “We are expanding in all growing areas in New Jersey, as well as throughout the East Coast. This year we doubled our blueberry production areas, and we plan to increase another 50 to 100 percent in the coming year. One deal is set in stone and we’re in negotiations with another.”

Earlier this year, Maglio & Co., headquartered in Glendale, WI, expanded its operations after opening the doors to a new facility in Oakdale, MN. “It opened for cross-docking in January 2012 and production in May,” Owner and President Sam Maglio told The Produce News on Nov. 8.

Members of the second and third generation of Levin family members in one of M. Levin’s first pressurized banana-ripening rooms in the late 1980s.