Just in time for cool salads, salsas, dips and spreads that are popular in summer, Brooks Tropicals LLC's "SlimCado" avocados are again in season. The company began harvesting early varieties of the Florida-grown avocados in late May, with commercial volumes scheduled to be moving in mid-June. Bill Brindle, vice president of sales for Brooks Tropicals, which is headquartered in Homestead, FL, said that Florida avocado varieties are alternate-bearing from year to year, but not all varieties are in sync. “Volumes on some varieties are stronger than others every year,” Mr. Brindle told The

The early California cherry season has been characterized by good volumes of high-quality fruit and strong demand, both domestically and in export markets. Customers "are pretty much taking [the cherries] as fast as we can pack them," Maurice (Mo) Cameron, managing partner of Flavor Tree Fruit Co. LLC in Hanford, CA, which markets fruit for Warmerdam Packing LLC, said in a May 26 interview with The Produce News. Prices had “moderated quite a bit to the $30 to $40 price range, which I think is the perfect pricing for the domestic retail trade,” he said. Prices had been “in the $50 to $60 range

Using both its web site, bigonions.com, and its Facebook site, Big Onions, the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee has launched a contest for recipes to be listed in a new cookbook being developed by the committee's marketing director, Sherise Jones. On the Facebook site, visitors are provided a link to the committee's bigonion.com site, where a contest form is posted. The first 100 responses will be given a free onion "Beanie Baby." According to Ms. Jones, all recipe submissions will be considered for publication in the Big Onion Facebook Fans section of the cookbook, and the winners of the

Giumarra Wenatchee introduced a new apple variety, Divine, to its lineup of New Zealand pipfruit. Divine is a disease-resistant Golden Delicious-Grive Rouge cross breed grown by Heartland Fruit NZ Ltd. The variety was developed in Delbard Nurseries in France and has a crisp, juicy texture and sweet, strong flavor. It is full red in appearance and medium to large in size. This is the first production from the Southern Hemisphere and the first time the variety will be available commercially in North America. Over time, Divine will also be available as an organic apple. "Divine is one of a new

FRESNO, CA -- In 2009, California growers shipped about 10 million pounds of fresh figs. "We anticipate probably 11 [million] to 12 million pounds this year," said Karla Stockli, chief executive officer of the California Fig Advisory Board and the California Fresh Fig Growers Association, both based here. "There are a few orchards coming into production that weren't in production for fresh last year." Trees appear to have good crops on them, and there have been no weather factors that have diminished the crop. However, the weather has been unseasonably cool throughout the growing period, and

A May 4 winner of a Republican primary election for a North Carolina Senate seat, watermelon grower-shipper Brent Jackson has learned a lot about politics in his first campaign for political office. Mr. Jackson told The Produce News May 18 that he was motivated to run because North Carolina, despite having agriculture as its primary industry, has few state leaders with an understanding of agricultural issues. Mr. Jackson is the founder, president and chief executive officer of Jackson Farming Co. Inc. in Autryville, NC. To his list of titles, Mr. Jackson added, "I'm mostly known as 'TWIC'