As the Northwest fruit season ramps up, Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers in Wenatchee, WA, is seeing good sizing and excellent quality in all crops.

Oneonta Marketing Director Scott Marboe said on June 5 that cherries were set to start the week of June 10, followed by early apricots the end of the month.

“The cherry crop is shaping up nicely,” Mr. Marboe said. “Bloom weather was perfect, and the growing season so far has been ideal.”

KEVIN EICHELE joined Watsonville, CA-based Monterey Mushrooms last November as Western region director of sales and is working from his home office in Lagun

Virginia’s agricultural production is one of the most diverse in the nation. Many Virginia commodities and products rank in the top ten among all U.S. states.

Fresh market tomatoes from Virginia, for example, rank fourth in the nation. Apples, summer potatoes and fresh market snap beans rank sixth in the country.

Sunrise Fresh Produce LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merchants Foodservice, announced the completion of its acquisition of certain assets from Produce Distribution Center LLC in Jacksonville, FL. The closing, completed June 5, enables Sunrise Fresh Produce to operate its second produce distribution center as Sunrise Fresh Produce of Jacksonville.

In association with the acquisition, Michael O'Brien, formerly of Adams Produce, has been named as general manager of Sunrise Fresh Produce of Jacksonville.

With the harvest of California early garlic underway as of mid-June, Argentine garlic cleaning up, old-crop Chinese garlic winding down and the first arrivals of new-crop Chinese garlic still a month away, garlic marketers in the United States say that demand is picking up and market prices are firming compared to a year ago.

HILLSDALE, NJ — The New Jersey Department of Agriculture sponsored the Eastern Produce Council’s June 12 meeting, here at Demarest Farm, marking the 25th time it has sponsored an EPC meeting. In recognition of that achievement, the council presented a special plaque to New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher and other representatives of the department past and present.

“This is a special night for the Eastern Produce Council,” EPC President Dean Holmquist of Allegiance Retail Services said in his opening remarks on a rain-soaked evening.