Six months after naming Allen Vangelos to the position of president and chief executive officer on an interim basis, the owners and board of directors of Sun World International LLC have made the appointment permanent.

The announcement was made in a June 12 press release following a nationwide search for a candidate to fill the position on a permanent basis. "Sun World's board and management team are delighted with Al's decision to accept the position on a permanent basis," board Chairman Christopher Parker said in the release.

YEADON, PA -- Specializing in serving high-ticket, high-quality specialty produce sales to white tablecloth restaurants in the Philadelphia area is the focus of Killian's Harvest Green Inc., which is headquartered in a red brick warehouse that was once part of the operations of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. Inc., which is based in Montvale, NJ.

ENGLEWOOD, NJ -- After nine months of hard work, Riviera Produce has started moving product into its newly revamped 10,000-square-foot warehouse that features "green" technology.

Ben Friedman, founder and president of Riviera Produce, based here just across the Hudson River from New York City, gave The Produce News a tour of the warehouse, which is part of the firm's 30,000-square-foot facility, which is third-party audited and approved and HACCP-certified, June 10, a day after it started utilizing the space.

WASHINGTON -- The Salmonella outbreak associated with fresh tomatoes is likely to cost the food industry more than the 2006 spinach recall, but this time the Food & Drug Administration is working with the produce industry to lessen the financial blow while it untangles the paperwork that will ultimately point to the source of the more 160 illnesses.

A massive hailstorm that swept across New York state Tuesday, June 18, may have reduced the state's apple crop by as much as 60 percent.

"The storm tore across western New York," Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association in Fishers, NY, told The Produce News the day after the storm. "It moved from east of Buffalo -- across the main fruit belt area -- and hit south of Syracuse and the Hudson Valley. It was like the storm had radar for apples."

NEWARK, DE -- Produce Marketing Association and Western Growers Association will co-host a free webinar for industry to learn about and provide feedback on the associations' new draft best management practices for complying with federal produce country-of-origin labeling.

The complimentary webinar, which will be held at 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, is designed to prepare industry members for Sept. 30, 2008, when mandatory federal country-of-origin labeling goes into effect.