PHOENIX - At an April 15 gala dinner feting one of the larger gatherings in the 18-year history of the International Fresh-cut Produce Association's annual conference and exhibition, Earthbound Farm and its founders, Drew and Myra Goodman, were named recipients of the 2005 Fresh-Cut Produce Award. Presented by the IFPA and The Produce News, the Fresh-Cut Produce Award recognized Earthbound Farm for its revolutionary work in advancing organically grown fresh-cut products. Other industry pioneers were also recognized at the dinner's award ceremony, which drew several hundred of the estimated 1

WENATCHEE, WA - Dovex Marketing Co. announced April 19 that it will stop selling the organic fruit of Blue Bird Inc. at the end of the 2004 crop season.. Dovex has been selling the organic fruit of Blue Bird since 1999. The combined volume of Dovex and Blue Bird increased from 200,000 cartons in 1999 to 800,000 cartons in 2004, of which 80 percent is from Dovex growers. For the 2005 crop, Dovex has added additional organic growers and will market approximately 900,000 cartons of organic fruit. All of the organic fruit will be packed at Dovex's dedicated organic packing facility at Olds Station

New York state apple growers have voted decisively to reauthorize the New York State Apple Marketing Order, with 71 percent of the ballots cast in favor of re-certifying the order for another eight years. The referendum was carried out over the past month and certified April 19 by Nathan L. Rudgers, New York state commissioner of agriculture. ?We?re very appreciative of the overwhelming support to keep the marketing order going for another eight years," said Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association, which is the receiving organization of funds collected by the apple marketing

The United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association has announced the produce industry leaders nominated to serve on its 2005 board of directors. Ascending to chairman of the board is Nicholas J. Tompkins, president and CEO of Apio Inc. in Guadalupe, CA. Mr. Tompkins has been CEO of Apio since its founding in 1979. The company is a manufacturer and marketer of pre-cut value-added vegetables to the club store, retail and foodservice sectors, as well as an exporter of fruits and vegetables throughout the world. In 1999, Apio was acquired by Landec Corp., a publicly traded company on the board of

Texas cantaloupe and honeydew producers are expecting a good year this year after three or four seasons of low prices. Their optimism may be well founded considering that acreage has taken a substantial cut in the past two years. John McClung of the Texas Produce Association revealed that Texas producers have put only 1,677 acres of cantaloupes and 687 acres of honeydews in the ground, according to the official acreage figures for 2005. As a point of comparison, Texas grew more than 4,250 acres of cantaloupes in 2003 and almost 1,700 acres of cantaloupes. In 2004, cantaloupe acreage dropped

Isador (Izzy) Albinder, owner of Hudson River Fruit Distributors in Milton, NY, died April 5 at the age of 91. Mr. Albinder, who had homes in Poughkeepsie, NY, and Hollywood, FL, was born in Russia in 1914 and came to the United States in 1930. He settled in Brooklyn, NY, where he went into business with a small retail fruit store in 1941, selling apples first from a pushcart, then from a horse-drawn wagon and ultimately from a truck. A trip through the Hudson Valley in New York in 1954 in search of high-quality apples to sell led to a move to Dutchess County, NY, in the mid-1950s, where he