SALINAS, CA -- The Grower-Shipper Association of Central California presented its E.E. (Gene) Harden Award for lifetime achievement in Central Coast agriculture to Jim Lugg of Fresh Express. The award was formally presented to Mr. Lugg June 21 as part of the organization's annual dinner-dance at the Corral de Tierra Country Club in Salinas, CA. The association's chairman, Dennis Donohue, presided over the presentation along with Fresh Express President Tanios Viviani and association President Jim Bogart. Mr. Lugg has worked for Fresh Express and TransFresh in research and food safety for 45

WASHINGTON -- The epidemiological evidence may point to tomatoes as the likely cause of the Salmonella outbreak, but health officials say they are "keeping an open mind" as new illnesses continue to be reported. "We continue to see a strong epidemiological association with consumption of tomatoes," said Patricia Griffin, chief of the Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. But produce investigations are very difficult because vegetables are often eaten together, Dr. Griffin said at a June 27 press briefing. "We continue to have an open mind about

Dan Kelly, the 51-year-old assistant manager of the Washington Growers Clearing House in Wenatchee, WA, is expected to be released from Central Washington Hospital by this weekend (June 28-29). Mr. Kelly was admitted to the facility in critical condition the afternoon of June 25 following a bicycle accident. WGCH Manager Kirk Mayer told The Produce News, "The report we have from the hospital [on June 26] is that he is in satisfactory condition." According to Mr. Mayer, Mr. Kelly, who is an accomplished athlete, was bicycling on a fairly steep rural road during lunchtime, and the accident

Mike Mizokami, founder of the "SunFed" label and a pioneer in year-round production for the U.S. market who operated farms in both the United States and Mexico, died June 12 in Chandler, AZ. He was 89. Mr. Mizokami was born Nov. 2, 1918, in La Junta, CO, and attended college at Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater, OK. In the early 1930s, following his father's death, he came home from college to take over the family farming operation in Blanca, CO. The farm became well known for summer spinach, most of which was shipped to customers in the Midwest and on the East Coast, said his son, Warren Mizokami.

New York fruit growers initially believed that the June 18 hailstorm may have caused as much as 60 percent crop loss, but a week later, reports indicate that while losses were major, they are not as bad as first thought. "Assessments at this time are that statewide, approximately 6.5 [million] to 7 million bushels of apples have been damaged or destroyed in one degree or another," Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association in Fishers, NY, told The Produce News June 24. The day following the storm, Mr. Allen said that hail swept across western New York, moving through the main fruit

WASHINGTON -- With Food & Drug Administration investigators searching for clues in Florida and Mexico as part of the traceback investigation involving tomatoes contaminated with Salmonella, some people are questioning what has gone wrong with the probe into the outbreak that has sickened more than 600 people, and which has taken more than three weeks. FDA sent teams of multi-disciplinary experts to both Mexico and Florida to conduct joint inspections on the farms and other tomato-handling sites throughout the distribution chain. As of this publication's press time, FDA had yet to announce any