Valhalla Sales & Marketing Inc., based in Kingsbury, CA, added GERRY SCHEIDT to its sales and customer development team on April 8.

Prior to joining Valhalla, Mr. Scheidt worked for Gerawan Farming in Reedley, CA, for 32 years. He has also previously worked for Sunny Cal, Surabian Packing and HMC Kingsbury.

Mr. Scheidt has been involved in the produce industry for 45 years. He got his start by working for Topco Associates as a federal state inspector. After four years as an inspector he switched gears and began his career in sales.

Though wild winter weather was still leading to strange events like sub-freezing temperatures as far south as Houston in late March, Texas grower-shippers on the whole are set up for excellent onion, melon and tropical deals this spring.

The onion deal looks to be especially promising for Texas.

Northwest storage supplies are lighter than they have been in years and there are very few onions still coming out of Mexico.

As California citrus growers continue to invest in needed research to aid the state's more than $2 billion citrus industry and battle threats such as the Asian citrus psyllid, citrus industry veteran Ken Keck will join the California Citrus Research Board as its new president on June 1.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) today introduced in Congress the Local Farms, Food & Jobs Act of 2013, which seeks to make fresh, healthy food more accessible to consumers and to support the farmers who grow it.

FoodLink, a commerce and traceability platform that connects fresh food retailers and wholesalers to a network of over 2,000 growers, packers and shippers, today introduced FoodLink Transit, a cloud-based inventory tracking system that provides real-time visibility into the inbound status of freshly harvested produce.

Identifying the multi-stakeholder challenges in an increasingly complex marketplace is crucial for today’s produce industry professionals. To facilitate conversation on those concerns, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association will debut two new programs at its 2013 convention in Toronto: the Retail Produce Manager event and a business program.

The business program will discuss industry topics through moderated sessions with various presenters, and the Retail Produce Manager program will do so through speakers.