Gabriel [Gabe] Nuñez, who since spring 2010 had been general manager of the newly formed Nogales, AZ-based Natural Flavor Produce LLC, along with three of the growers who were partners at Natural Flavor have joined with a fourth grower to form a new company, Golden Desert Produce LLC, also in Nogales.

NOGALES, AZ — Farmer’s Best International LLC, here, in its marketing outreach to its retail customers, is offering retailers an assortment of marketing tools as part of a program the company calls a “retail toolbox,” according to Veronica Kraushaar, owner of Viva Global Marketing LLC and a consultant to Farmer’s Best.

NOGALES, AZ — Farmer’s Best International LLC, here, will have an increased acreage in nearly all commodities for the 2011-12 season, according to Steve Yubeta, vice president of sales.

“Across the board, our acreage is up,” he said Nov. 10. “It is not a big percentage ... but we continue to grow.”

NOGALES, AZ — Big Chuy Distributors & Sons Inc., here, is in the watermelon business 12 months a year with production from several areas.

“Right now, we are coming out of Hermosillo and Guaymas” in the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa, said Jesus (Chuy) Lopez Jr., the company’s president, in an interview with The Produce News Nov. 10. Around mid-December, production will shift south to the state of Jalisco, and run there for about three months. “Then we will start pack up in Guaymas and Hermosillo in the spring deal,” which will continue into July.

Paul Bachelier, with the Daily Fresh logo in the background.

NOGALES, AZ — After 18 years at Omega Produce Co.

“Plain Jane” brand tomatoes, Bell peppers and cucumbers, which are grown in Mexico by Melones Internacional SA de CV and distributed and marketed by Apache Produce Co. Inc. in Nogales, AZ, are all greenhouse grown. This year, Melones has expanded its greenhouse operations in Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, and is in process of building additional greenhouses in the state of Nayarit, according to Alejandro Canelos, a principal in Melones and an officer in Apache.