Steve Kenfield, who spent the last several years as president of Ripe 'N Ready in Parlier, CA, has moved to Nogales, AZ, to take a position as vice president of sales and marketing with SunFed. "I have known [SunFed founder] Danny [Mandel] for a long time," said Mr. Kenfield. "We worked together way back when I was with Amerifresh" in Seattle. Mr. Kenfield started his produce career with the international sales division of the Bruce Church Co. around 1979, "then migrated over to their pre-cut lettuce division, Red Coach Foods, which today is known as Fresh Express." He subsequently went to

Five years ago, Pinos Produce Inc. in San Diego, which grows tomatoes and cucumbers in Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, undertook a program to transition all of its production from the open field into shade houses. It was envisioned as a five-year program, with "more and more" shade houses being built each year "until we had 100 percent shade houses," and it is "right on schedule," said Daniel Uribe, sales manager. "We had some open field this year," Mr. Uribe said. But when the harvest of those fields is finished, the transition will be complete. With the start of the new harvest season in

As a result of softening marketing conditions, Irwindale, CA-based Ready Pac Produce Inc. will idle its salad-processing plant in Plymouth, IN, next month. Steve Dickstein, vice president of marketing for Ready Pac, said that the plant would be idled Nov. 9. Production at the facility will return when market conditions warrant it, he said. Mr. Dickstein said that the decision was in the works two or three months ago. At the time, it was thought that perhaps 50 of the 200 it employs at the Indiana plant would be let go and the company notified its employees of the situation. But further

Which unexpected produce problems will develop during the night while you are fast asleep? What do you plan to do if and when a major crisis hits the produce industry? What if it involves your product? Whatever lies ahead could be very serious, overwhelming and even devastating to your business. In 1894 and 1895, there were back-to-back freezes in Florida that virtually wiped out entire citrus crops. Unfortunately, similar brutal weather conditions still plague the produce industry. On Nov. 9, 1959, the weed killer AZT that was found to cause cancer in rats contaminated some cranberry bogs in

Salyer American Fresh Foods Inc., based in Salinas, CA, announced the hiring of Todd S. Pearson to its sales team. Mr. Pearson will be involved with developing new business and servicing Salyer American's midwestern and national accounts. A graduate of California Polytechnic State University, Mr. Pearson holds a degree in agribusiness marketing. He brings six years of experience in produce sales and service, having worked for BoniPak Produce LLC as an account manager/commodity manager for five years, and he also worked as a buyer for OK Produce in Fresno, CA, where he established customer

FRESNO, CA -- "We are in a growth pattern," said Tim Baloian, president of Baloian Farms, here. "We need more space. We increase volume steadily," and during certain months of the year, "the facility we are in is way too small. So we needed more physical space." To meet those immediate needs and to accommodate anticipated future growth, the company began construction about a year ago on a 50,000- square-foot cold storage facility that is now nearing completion. Already, some of the new cold rooms were in use when The Produce News visited the facility in late September. The new cooler is