Frontera Produce Ltd., a vertically integrated grower, packer and shipper of fresh produce headquartered in Edinburg, TX, announced in a Sept. 28 press release that the company plans to invest in a consumer-focused marketing approach in the fourth quarter of 2009 and throughout 2010.

The announcement followed the launch of the company's recent addition to its marketing arsenal, a newly designed trailer featuring the company's latest consumer-focused message: "Growing the food your family loves to eat."

Over the past month, at four different locations across the country, pallet industry representatives, as well as others, have been discussing proposals related to the regulation of wood packaging materials, including pallets that move in interstate commerce in the United States.

Only about 14 percent of U.S. adults and less than 10 percent of teenagers are consuming at least two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables on a daily basis, according to a new report just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Heidi Blanck, a CDC senior scientist and lead author of the State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables 2009, agreed that this report reflected "dismal data."

WASHINGTON  Ten buyers sent a message last month that they are expecting their produce suppliers to meet the first three milestones in the Produce Traceability Initiative and be able to electronically track produce throughout the supply chain by 2012.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor's statistics inflation calculator, what cost $1 in 1980 would cost $2.61 in 2009.

The People History (www.thepeoplehistory.com), a web site project with the goal of making modern history interesting, reveals some retail food prices from past decades. Apples sold in a Wyoming store for 39 cents per pound in 1986, the equivalent of $1.02 today; tomatoes were 39 cents per pound in New York in 1980, the equivalent of $1.02 today; bananas sold for 19 cents a pound in Maryland in 1960, the equivalent of $1.39 today.

John Warmerdam, chief operating officer of Warmerdam Packing LLC in Hanford, CA, and Maurice (Mo) Cameron, sales manager of Trinity Fruit Sales Co. in Fresno, CA, jointly announced Tuesday, Sept. 29 in exclusive interviews with The Produce News that Mr. Cameron would be leaving Trinity Fruit "probably effective October 1" and forming a partnership with Warmerdam to market the company's cherries, stone fruit and other fruit beginning with the 2010 season.