When a few employees of Selah, WA-based Rainier Fruit Co. and some of their family and friends looked for ways to improve their fitness level in a team- building environment, they looked for something fun and challenging. They chose the Hood to Coast Relay, which spans 197 miles from the top of Oregon's Mount Hood down to the Pacific Ocean in Seaside, OR. The 13 members of the Rainier team joined over 12,000 other runners in a 30-hour non-stop odyssey to the coast. Billed as the largest running relay race in the world, teams from around the world came to participate in an event that raised

Wenatchee, WA-based Columbia Marketing International has hired Bob Carter as food-safety coordinator. Mr. Carter reports to Mike Hambelton, former CMI vice president of marketing, who is now in charge of special company projects. "The commitment to do food safety -- it's all or nothing," Mr. Carter told The Produce News in a recent interview. Asked about the challenges of his new position with CMI, Mr. Carter said that the company is being proactive in obtaining Safe Quality Food certification for its six packingsheds. "One is SQF-certified," he said. "They want to get the other five certified

The Idaho Potato Commission is marking its 70th anniversary this year. Formed in May 1937 and originally (and only briefly) known as the Idaho Fruit & Vegetable Advertising Commission, the IPC has been actively promoting Idaho potatoes since its inception. It was "the first organization formed in Idaho to promote any type of produce" and "one of the earliest commodity organizations" formed in the United States, said Frank Muir, the commission's president. In honor of IPC's 70-year milestone, the U.S. House of Representatives "named the month of May Idaho Potato Month, and President Bush sent

PLEASANTON, CA -- Consumers have never had more choices than they have today regarding where to buy fresh produce, according to research gleaned from scan data, interviews and focus groups. This is one of the major messages delivered to attendees of a recent Fresh Produce & Floral Council luncheon meeting by keynote speaker Steve Lutz of the Perishables Group. Mr. Lutz was speaking on trends with regard to fresh produce that his company has noted from the material it reviews on a regular basis. The Perishables Group has access to scan data from more than 17,000 stores in 655 separate U.S

Fact: Nineteen of the 22 E. coli 0157:H7 discoveries associated with leafy greens that have resulted in confirmed illnesses since 1995 took place in late summer or early fall. Is there something about the hot summer months that creates an environment that is more likely to produce this specific strain of E. coli? Is the pathogen itself temperature-sensitive? Is there something about animals, which are known carriers and suspected spreaders of the pathogen, that makes them more susceptible to E. coli when they are heat stressed? Is 19 out of 22 statistically meaningful or too small of a sample

SEASIDE, CA -- About 200 people on or near the front lines of spinach science research congregated Sept. 24 for the International Spinach Conference, which was held at the Embassy Suites Hotel Monterey Bay- Seaside, here. Although discussion of food-safety and E. coli outbreaks in spinach were inevitable, the purpose of the conference was to give plant scientists an opportunity to interact, compare notes and share areas of study and progress. The second day of the two-day event involved a bus tour to a Salinas Valley farm to observe harvest and planting demonstrations, a visit to the