HOUSTON -- "Are we listening to consumer trends?" The industry's answer to that question is critical to its future success, according to Brian Silbermann, president of the Produce Marketing Association, based in Newark, DE.

In his state-of-the-industry address delivered at the Oct. 13 breakfast general session during the PMA Fresh Summit International Convention, here, Mr. Silbermann emphasized the importance of focusing on basics, noting that "the first and perhaps most important basic rule is to listen to consumers."

HOUSTON -- Don Harris, who has served as the top produce executive at Wild Oats for the past five years, did not survive as the melding of the chain into Whole Foods was completed.

"I am happy that everyone on my team found positions with Whole Foods or with the Smart & Final aspect of the deal," he told The Produce News during the recent Produce Marketing Association annual convention. "But at the end of the day, there just wasn't a spot for me." He confirmed Oct. 13 "that as of midnight last night, I am out of a job and looking for another one."

HOUSTON -- In the quality vs. quantity equation, the Produce Marketing Association's Fresh Summit International Convention and Exposition, held Oct. 12-15, appears to have won where it really counts: drawing the right people to Houston and the right foot traffic to the exhibition booths.

A random sampling of exhibitors indicated that the flow of foot traffic was down from last year and perhaps from some other recent years as well, but the quality of that traffic held up well.

Most experts who track sales of a product after a food-safety scare, expected sales of fresh spinach to rebound within six months of last year's E. coli outbreak linked to fresh spinach.

But about a year later, sales are still down by 16-18 percent, and while there are signs that recovery continues, it is happening at a slow pace.

When Sundia Corp. debuted in 2005, industry heavyweights paid little attention. Two years later, the San Francisco Bay area company has one of the faster-growing produce brands in the United States, successfully challenging established names in produce departments across the country and Canada.

At the recent Produce Marketing Association show, Sundia unveiled "True Fruit Lite" and "True Fruit Organic," which are perfectly ripened fruit products in Sundia's proprietary "Grab n' Go" packaging that features a spork for on- the-go consumers.

WASHINGTON -- A congressional hearing raised serious questions about the adequacy of border security from foreign pests and diseases, prompting one congressman to say that the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection program was "in shambles."

"Stopping foreign pests and prohibited agricultural products from entering the U.S. might not be as sexy as stopping terrorists, weapons or drugs, but it is certainly just as important," said Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, who called the Oct. 3 hearing.