Richard K. Gore, who worked in sales for Mike & Matt Produce Co. LLC in Vineland, NJ, died suddenly April 29 of a heart attack. He was 53.

"Richard was with our company for seven years," Jerry Mongelluzzo, owner of Mike & Matt, told The Produce News. "He was a tremendous help to our business during those years. He will be greatly missed by us all."

Freshway Foods in Sidney, OH, announced a voluntary recall May 6 of certain Romaine lettuce products because of the possible connection between the recalled Romaine lettuce and an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 19 people in three states.

Produce and floral retail industry veteran Anthony Barbieri will join the Produce Marketing Association staff in June as vice president of sales and business development.

The Canadian Produce Marketing Association's 85th annual convention and trade show will be held May 12-14 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. "Today, our annual convention and trade show attracts approximately 2,700 delegates and over 240 exhibitors from Canada, the United States, Mexico and many other countries," said Adrian Abbott, CPMA's 2009-10 chairman of the board. "This growth represents the confidence of the trade and recognition of the value that CPMA brings to its membership."

WASHINGTON - Food & Drug Administration investigators have traced Romaine lettuce grown in the Yuma, AZ, region to an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 19 people in three states, Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner of foods for FDA, said at a May 6 congressional hearing.

The first case of E. coli poisoning was reported April 6, but it took until May 5 when the New York state Public Health Laboratory in Albany found a positive sample of E. coli O145 in a bag of Freshway Foods shredded Romaine lettuce to track down the possible source of the outbreak, said Mr. Taylor.

Rain at or just prior to harvest time can devastate cherries by causing the fruit to split. But in spite of an unusually wet spring in California's San Joaquin Valley, most of the early cherry varieties in the valley escaped serious damage due to a happy coincidence: the spring weather in the valley has been unseasonably cool as well as uncharacteristically rainy. The cool temperatures have delayed the maturity of the crop, so most of the cherries that saw rain were still too small and too green for the rain to do much damage.