In mid-November, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association held its third annual Fall Harvest, which saw members of its organization come to its nation's capital to talk about some key produce industry issues.

CPMA President Ron Lemaire said there were three main topics on the table: the Safe Food for Canadians Act; establishing a single produce license administrator; and creating some type of bankruptcy priority position for produce sellers similar to the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act Trust in the United States.

Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s — around Tampa Bay, FL, that is all anyone hears about lately.

Grimaldi’s is a legendary Brooklyn, NY, pizzeria that over the last few years has expanded across the South and West, with operations based in Arizona and more than 30 locations in California, Texas, South Carolina and a half-dozen new stores in Florida - three of the most recent in Tampa Bay, thus leading to the talk on the streets.

Tod Parkinson spent years as a salesman for Valliwide Organic. In 2010, he left the sales desk to return to the fields and farm land that he leased.

The shift from sales to farming also marked a shift from profits for the Reedley, CA-based sales company to building the first high school in the Huruma slum in Nairobi, Kenya.

What prompted the move was Parkinson’s involvement in a nonprofit and a small group study of Rick Warren’s best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life. The nonprofit, When I Grow Up, partners with local leaders.

The Produce Marketing Association announced Dec. 2 in an email to its membership that its former president, Bob Carey, died Friday, Nov. 29, at the age of 82.

The 2013 South African citrus season has concluded after a strong season.

"It has been a very good season for our citrus," Suhanra Conradie, chief executive officer of the Western Cape Citrus Producers Forum, said in a press release. "In our 14th year, the volumes consistently have been [about] 40,000 tons each year. This season brought 39,462.98 tons to the U.S."

General Produce Inc. of Atlanta began more than 50 years ago as a purveyor of bananas and has since grown to become one of the Southeast’s larger distributors of produce — from apples to zucchini — with its own fleet of more than 100 trucks providing overnight delivery to 11 Southeastern states.