With distribution facilities located throughout the United States and multiple offshore sourcing regions, HLB Specialties is able to provide its customers with reliable supplies of tropical produce items throughout the year.

Lorenz Hartmann de Barros, director of sales for the Pompano Beach, FL-based importer-distributor of tropical and speciality produce, said that while papayas are the firm’s signature item, it has branched out in recent years with increased volumes of mangos, limes and avocados, as well as a small but robust rambutan program.

“We opened an office in Plant City, Florida, last July,” Jimmy Myrick, vice president of Edward L. Myrick Produce in Pompano Beach, FL, told The Produce News. “That office is being staffed by Carl Boyles and Donald Buti. Both men previously worked for Crown Harvest Produce in Plant City. They are highly seasoned professionals who come to our company with many years of experience.”

Mr. Myrick said that the new office will be handling the company’s traditional product line, but it will also be expanding into new items.

No one ever knew quite how she did it.

When Wendy Brannen took over the helm of the Vidalia Onion Committee in Vidalia, GA, in July 2005, she inherited a favorable situation. Market penetration and consumer awareness of Vidalias were already considerable.

But she also took on the formidable task of raising that bar even higher, despite working with tight budgets and a U.S. economy that ranged from disastrous to sluggish during her eight year tenure.

Last year, Herndon Farms LLC of Lyons, GA, dodged a bullet in the form of downy mildew that took as much as a third of some growers’ crops but did not impact the Herndon deal. This year, Herndon dodged raindrops; 14-17 inches of rain soaked the region in late February, but strong winds came in and tidied up the excess water in quick fashion.

A successful farmer in Reidsville, GA, and a friend to all, Buck Shuman’s fortunes took a turn for the worse when his kindheartedness left him overextended in the early 1990s. While his farming efforts never failed, as the owner of Shuman Fertilizer, Inc., he sold other farmers everything they needed to plant, grow and harvest a crop — often on credit, a practice that would cost him dearly. By 1994, after putting his four children through college, he was stone broke.

Ray Farms Inc. of Glennville, GA, has been in the Vidalia onion deal for more than 40 years and the family owned company has always done things one way. Apparently, that is the right way. This year, Ray Farms was selected by its peers as the Vidalia Onion Grower of the Year.