Over the past month, at four different locations across the country, pallet industry representatives, as well as others, have been discussing proposals related to the regulation of wood packaging materials, including pallets that move in interstate commerce in the United States. For several years, there has been an international standard requiring wood pallets and some other wood packaging materials to be heat treated or fumigated before use in an effort to control the transfer of wood-boring pests from one country to another. Noting that there is an international standard, Bruce Scholnick

Only about 14 percent of U.S. adults and less than 10 percent of teenagers are consuming at least two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables on a daily basis, according to a new report just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heidi Blanck, a CDC senior scientist and lead author of the State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables 2009, agreed that this report reflected "dismal data." The report summarizes data for fruit and vegetable consumption using a survey of 100,000 teenagers in 2007, as well as extensive phone interviews with adults. Dr. Blanck said

WASHINGTON  Ten buyers sent a message last month that they are expecting their produce suppliers to meet the first three milestones in the Produce Traceability Initiative and be able to electronically track produce throughout the supply chain by 2012. Three produce trade associations  the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, the Produce Marketing Association and the United Fresh Produce Association  joined forces in 2007 to move the industry toward a standardized, whole-supply-chain system. Last year, a steering committee of 40 companies hammered out a schedule of milestones that would

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor's statistics inflation calculator, what cost $1 in 1980 would cost $2.61 in 2009. The People History (www.thepeoplehistory.com), a web site project with the goal of making modern history interesting, reveals some retail food prices from past decades. Apples sold in a Wyoming store for 39 cents per pound in 1986, the equivalent of $1.02 today; tomatoes were 39 cents per pound in New York in 1980, the equivalent of $1.02 today; bananas sold for 19 cents a pound in Maryland in 1960, the equivalent of $1.39 today. On-line supermarket circular ads that ran

John Warmerdam, chief operating officer of Warmerdam Packing LLC in Hanford, CA, and Maurice (Mo) Cameron, sales manager of Trinity Fruit Sales Co. in Fresno, CA, jointly announced Tuesday, Sept. 29 in exclusive interviews with The Produce News that Mr. Cameron would be leaving Trinity Fruit "probably effective October 1" and forming a partnership with Warmerdam to market the company's cherries, stone fruit and other fruit beginning with the 2010 season. The new marketing company, which will be headquartered at the Warmerdam facility in Hanford, will be called Flavor Tree, a name that "ties

Your flight arrives at an airport in the vicinity of Anaheim, CA, where the annual Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit convention is taking place. You claim your travel bag, hop in a cab or shuttle bus, and head to the hotel where you will stay for the next few days. After checking in at the hotel, you unpack your bags, freshen up a bit, and make some phone calls. Then it is off to meet friends and associates to begin another popular PMA Fresh Summit. After a period of laboring through a tough economy, the PMA Fresh Summit is a welcome respite this year. This event is a timely remedy we