The Southeast Produce Council has some exciting events planned for its annual fall conference, scheduled for Sept. 20-22 at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.

Among the highlights will be an address by Roy Williams, head basketball coach at the University of North Carolina; a state-of-the-council presentation by SPC President John Shuman; an address by Amy Guerrieri, president and founder of RAMP, an association which works to fight poverty in the United States; and the annual Ken Lanhardt Memorial Golf Tournament.

Market Fresh Produce has added a new look to its bagged sweet potato lineup. The new look allows Market Fresh to offer multiple sizes of bags using the same random repeat film and is consistent with the successful sweet onion bag the Nixa, MO-based firm has been marketing for several years now.  

Earlier this year, the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture released annual summaries for the 2011 season for vegetables and fruits grown in New York. The Vegetable Report was issued in January, and the Fruit Report was released this past March.

“We have again expanded our Canadian and Mexican production,” Jim DiMenna, president of JemD Farms, headquartered in Leamington, ON, told The Produce News. “We are building another phase this year in conjunction with one of our grower-partners in Leamington. This will expand our cucumber and tomato operations. In Mexico, our growing partner, Agricola El Rosal, built and came on stream with new acreage and will be expanding even more to square up some bare land. We’ll be filling in about five acres there with new production.”

L&M Cos. has stepped up its operations in Michigan with the announcement that it is open for business at the Benton Harbor Market.

Salinas, CA-based Danaco Solutions LLC announced the hiring of LISA TAYLOR as procurement manager on May 21.