If there is one key to winning over another bell pepper customer according to Mike Aiton, it is a good recipe, an explanation about chili rellenos, a chart showing nutritional content or anything written that educates. Mr. Aiton, who heads Coachella, CA-based Prime Time International's marketing, new business development and new product development, said that bell peppers -- more than other products -- convince customers once they grasp their nutritional content and status as a staple in diets worldwide. These days, Mr. Aiton is an optimistic "pepper person," and his upbeat nature gets a boost

Fremont, CA-based Purfresh, a provider of technologies that purify, protect and preserve food and water, announced May 10 results of recent third-party research that demonstrate ozone's applicability and effectiveness as a tool to improve the safety of fresh food. The results, from research commissioned by Purfresh and conducted by The National Food Lab, demonstrated that controlled supplementation of ozone, an active form of oxygen, into transportation container conditions was able to kill and control the spread of Salmonella by more than 99.997 percent, Listeria monocytogenes by more than 99

After a winter of doing without, U.S. consumers now have ample supplies of fresh Florida tomatoes available. Brutal winter weather wiped out as much as 85 percent of the Florida tomato crop. Some plants were salvaged, and others were reset. The result is a later- than-usual crop of very good tomatoes at promotable volumes. With the shortage of Florida tomatoes, buyers and brokers sourced most of their product from Nogales and Mexico from mid-January through mid-May. Some Florida tomato growers began picking as late as May 12 - more than two weeks behind the usual deal. "Today is my first day

NOGALES, AZ -- The Fresh Produce Association of the Americas' annual membership meeting May 11 here had several highlights, including Jaime Chamberlain of JC Distributing assuming the chairman's position. In addition, Alejandro Canelos of Apache Produce Imports was elected to fill the position of chairman-elect, members had the opportunity to meet new FPAA President Lance Jungmeyer, and a slate of board directors was elected by the membership. Mr. Chamberlain is the owner of JC Distributing in Nogales, AZ, and has been involved with the association for many years as a member and a director on

After completing a retail promotion tied to the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament, Mexican producers and exporters of avocados have launched a new campaign hoping to capitalize on the interest created by soccer's World Cup. Emiliano Escobedo, marketing director for the Avocado Producers & Exporting Packers Association of Michoacán, better known as APEAM, said that the March Madness promotion was designed to keep Mexican avocado sales humming between the Super Bowl in January and the Cinco de Mayo holiday (May 5), which are the two top-selling avocado promotional

Rousseau Farming Co. in Tolleson, AZ, one of the state's faster-growing produce companies, announced in late April that it has signed a new contract to ship its products on pallets from Chep, one of the world's leading pallet and container pooling companies. Rousseau Farming is now transporting organic vegetables, broccoli, cilantro, kale, mixed greens, cabbage, carrots, dry onions and watermelon from its farms in Tolleson and Scottsdale, AZ, to supermarkets, distributors and wholesale clubs across the United States, Canada and Mexico on Chep pallets. The firm moved from limited-use whitewood