California has spring, summer and storage onions. Taken all together, the state has the third-largest onion acreage in the nation, behind only the Idaho/eastern Oregon area and the Columbia Basin in the Pacific Northwest.

Wayne Mininger, executive vice president of the National Onion Association, told The Produce News that dehydrated onions are not included in these acreage totals. If they were, California would rank No. 1 in onion production, he said.

Continued growth at Ippolito International LP has created the need to add two additional salespeople to its team, a company official told The Produce News.

Produce veteran Bill Vargas and newcomer Brittany Corda recently joined the Ippolito sales team, according to Butch Corda, the firm's general manager.

Palmetto, FL-based Taylor & Fulton Packing LLC has partnered with Fish Farms in Newport, TN, to provide fresh tomatoes to the East Coast on a year- round basis.

The company also brought aboard industry veteran Barry Stein to coordinate the partnership.

"I've been doing this a long time," Mr. Stein told The Produce News March 29. "I'm excited to be here to help the company coordinate and offer the trade tomatoes 12 months a year. Good, Eastern tomatoes 12 months a year - that's hard to beat."

The Canada Border Services Agency has initiated an investigation into the alleged injurious dumping of greenhouse Bell peppers originating in or exported from the Netherlands.

The Ontario Produce Marketing Association in Toronto issued a notice of the action March 31 to its membership.

The investigation follows a complaint filed by the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers in Leamington, ON, alleging that the dumping of these goods is harming Canadian production by causing lost sales, price erosion, price suppression, reduction in gross margins and reduced profits.

WASHINGTON -- Some members of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Fruit & Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee gave a cold shoulder to USDA's buy local emphasis in school farming initiatives during a March 30 meeting, here.

Many companies are meeting the Produce Traceability Initiative's first milestones, but the industry is also taking a wait-and-see approach in tackling the final steps, according to a new survey released March 25.

The produce industry has been eagerly awaiting results from an on-line survey of 263 fresh fruit and vegetable companies conducted to benchmark the adoption of the Produce Traceability Initiative. Results of the survey were shared with the PTI steering committee at a Dallas meeting last month but were not released to the public until March 25.