"I think it's going to be a very good year," Ted Kreis said of this year’s Red River Valley potato marketing season. Mr. Kreis is the marketing director of the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association in East Grand Forks, MN. “We looked at the overall anticipated crop of other red [potato] growing areas. It seems there will be a favorable market this year.” This is because the growers in Washington state’s Skagit Valley and Wisconsin “are down.” He said Wisconsin had exceptional yields last year now some areas are below normal. “Florida is not planting as many this year.” On Sept. 15, prices

After a four-year marketing affiliation with L&M Cos. Inc., Pleasant Valley Potato Inc. in Aberdeen, ID, has again brought the company's sales and marketing activities in house. "Pleasant Valley and L&M are no longer affiliated in any way," said Ryan Wahlen, sales manager for Pleasant Valley. “We still sell some potatoes to L&M, but they don’t do our marketing or sales.” The change is “more of a strategic move than anything,” he said. “It wasn’t that we had any hard feelings toward L&M or that they did a bad job. Quite the contrary, we still have a great relationship with L&M.” But the growers

Charles Walker, executive secretary of the U.S. Sweet Potato Council, told The Produce News Oct. 1 that although sweet potato harvesting is underway across the country, it will be some time before official crop figures are available. "Growers in the major sweet potato-producing states stay in touch with me, however, and based on what I've heard to date, everyone is having a good crop this year," said Mr. Walker. “There is a little concern about the heavy rainfall that swept up the East Coast during the last week of September, but if there is some damage, it probably won’t reveal itself for a

Plain Jane Produce, a leading North American greenhouse vegetable grower and supplier, has begun a new greenhouse operation in Nayarit, Mexico, with plans to expand acreage tenfold in the next two years. According to an Oct. 5 press release, the company will open 25 covered acres in Nayarit this month with plans to expand the facility to 250 covered acres over the next two years. New operations in Nayarit will allow Plain Jane to offer freshly harvested tomatoes to the market during the fall growing season, September through January. With Nayarit, Plain Jane also expands its distribution reach

FRESNO, CA — A 14-year legal challenge to the constitutionality of the state law establishing the California Table Grape Commission was resolved Oct. 5 in favor of the commission when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower-court ruling. The plaintiffs who filed the original complaint have contended that the law establishing the commission and authorizing its programs was in violation of the First Amendment, but the U.S. Court of Appeals in November 2009 upheld an earlier U.S. District Court ruling rejecting the First Amendment challenge. According to an Oct. 5 press release from the

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