Mike Casazza has been changing keys within the produce industry for a few years now. The 27-year-old aspiring musician works as a sales manager at Fresh Directions International, an avocado house in Ventura, CA. Mr. Casazza grew up in the small farming town of Hughson, CA, and was exposed to the trade at an early age. "I have family that's involved," he said. But the way I got fully involved was when my father was a vice president at Del Monte. Since about age 14, Mr. Casazza has been a member of the produce fraternity, meeting his fathers friends and colleagues and making professional

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Ray Mah, Joe Thomas and Steve Ng joined their three separate businesses to form Fresh Green on the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market, it was a decision based more on the future than the present. "None of the businesses were in any trouble," said Mr. Thomas, formerly president of DeMattei Bros. "We just said, 'Let's try it.' All of us are hard workers, so we knew that wouldn't enter into the picture. What did enter into the picture were the changing buying habits of customers. "The industry is changing, Mr. Thomas said. "We're seeing a difference in buying. People

SAN FRANCISCO -- Shing Ho took his background in catering for renowned San Francisco-based Bill Graham Presents and fashioned a wholesale produce company -- VegiWorks Inc. -- that delivers fresh produce to its clients. His days as a caterer brought him in close contact with restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area. He and his godbrother, Nathan Seto, whose parents owned a produce store in the Chinatown section of San Francisco, launched into the business of delivering fresh produce primarily to high-end restaurants. They started in 1992 with one account and a pickup truck purchased by Mr

TORONTO -- In a little under four hours, a fund drive held Sept. 23 at the Ontario Food Terminal, here, raised over $17,000 in Canadian funds for Hurricane Katrina relief. Project: Re-Leaf was designed to show the Canadian produce industry's support for those suffering in the wake of massive Hurricane Katrina, which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August. Spearheaded by Cory Clack-Streef, president of Faye Clack Communications Inc., a group of 15 volunteers wearing white Project: Re-Leaf T-shirts accompanied by Freggie, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association's mascot, fanned out through

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will close two of its five PACA branch offices in February as a cost-cutting measure, according to Bruce Summers, chief of the PACA. According to Mr. Summers, who was installed as chief of the PACA about four months ago, closing the Northeast regional office in New Brunswick, NJ, and the Midwest regional office in Glen Ellyn, IL, will result in a savings of over $1 million annually. The move is in lieu of a fee increase, according to Robert Parker, regional director of the Southwest regional office in Fort Worth, TX, who said that fees have remained the same

According to the Produce for Better Health Foundation, the key for retailers to sell more fruits and vegetables is to pitch them as snacks because consumers are already eating lots of fruit at breakfast while losing interest in cooking vegetable side dishes at dinnertime. This was just one of the messages from PBH's 2005 State of the Plate Research on-line seminar designed to help retailers boost fresh produce sales. More than 70 percent of consumers surveyed by PBH indicated that snacking is when they are most likely to eat more produce, Bryant Wynes, director of retail marketing for PBH