Two executives of RLB Food Distributors LP, based in West Caldwell, NJ, have purchased the company from its founder.

Floyd Avillo and Pat Mele III, chief operating officer and vice president/ controller, respectively, have purchased 100 percent of the company stock from Rob Bildner. The deal closed on May 9.

Mr. Bildner was president of RLB, which he founded in 1985. He and his wife, Elisa Spungen Bildner, who was president of RLB's processing division, FreshPro, have left the company to pursue other interests.

Allan Corrin, who is best known for shepherding the development of the Ruby Red seedless grape variety and launching Lunch Bunch grapes, died May 8, as a result of complications from a stroke he suffered in 2005. He was 80.

In an effort to raise consumer awareness of and support for Connecticut farmers and "Connecticut Grown" products, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture has partnered with Cashman & Katz Integrated Communications, a marketing firm in Glastonbury, CT, to develop a new comprehensive, statewide advertising and public relations campaign for 2007.

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of senators announced May 17 that they had reached an agreement on comprehensive immigration reform that includes most of the provisions of the industry-supported AgJOBs bill: a guest worker program, employment verification system, and a system to address the current 12 million undocumented workers living in the United States.

One of the better known health advisers, Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, will star in a documentary airing May 19 and May 20 that investigates the deadly spinach outbreak.

In CNN: Special Investigations Unit - Danger: Poisoned Food, Dr. Gupta "asks tough questions about the voluntary guidance on the produce industrys processing and reveals that the FDA knew about problems that existed on farms in California," CNN said in a statement on the upcoming special.