You no doubt have heard these words before: “Try it, you’ll like it,” or “Try it and you’ll buy it.”

Do you ever get coaxed by someone to try different foods you never experienced before? If so, did you like or dislike the experience? Was it compelling enough to change your mind about a certain item?

Sunkist Growers held its annual meeting Feb. 19 at which it announced that 2013 was another billion-dollar revenue year. This marks the fourth consecutive billion-dollar year for Sunkist, with grower payments totaling $873 million compared to $838 million in 2012.

Hy-Vee Inc., a grocery retailer with 235 stores in eight states, announced plans for a major expansion of its Minnesota operations into the Twin Cities market. Hy-Vee has been a fixture in Minnesota communities since 1969 and currently has 17 employee-owned stores statewide with approximately 5,100 employees.

SAVANNAH, GA — Reigning Florida Watermelon Queen Brandi Harrion was named the 2014 National Watermelon Queen at the association's 100th anniversary celebration Feb. 22, here.

The NWA convention not only celebrated the association's 100th year, it also marked the 50th year of the queen competition.

Due to the significant growth in volume of strawberries and other berries moving across the border from Mexico into the United States at McAllen, TX, TransFresh Corp., which provides to the berry industry a modified-atmosphere pallet packaging system called Tectrol, has put “significant capital infrastructure into the key coolers down there,” according to Rich MacLeod, vice president of the TransFresh Pallet Division North America.

California Giant Berry Farms, based in Watsonville, CA, has created a new staff position focused on field-level education and training and recently hired Jazmin Lopez as the new food safety coordinator.