Ballantine Produce Co. in Reedley, CA, announced the addition of Greg Mancini to its sales and marketing team. Mr. Mancini will be involved in all areas of sales of the company, including domestic and imported tree fruit, grapes and specialty items. His experience in marketing stone fruit and grape programs will add depth to the Ballantine organization and sales strength to its diverse product offerings. In addition to the "Ballantine? brand of premium and specialty fruit, Mr. Mancini brings experience to Ballantine?s Ripe N Ready program. He will focus on empowering existing and new Ripe N

C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., based in Minneapolis has acquired the operations and certain assets of three produce sourcing and marketing companies: FoodSource Inc., FoodSource Procurement LLC and Epic Roots Inc. The three companies combined had gross revenues of approximately $270 million in 2004. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The FoodSource entities, based in Monterey, CA, provide a variety of produce sourcing and distribution services including produce procurement, contract management, private-label brand management, new-item development, merchandising, packaging and

WASHINGTON " Farm groups wasted no time protesting the Bush administration?s proposal to cut farm and commodity subsidies in the 2006 budget. A coalition of 100 farm groups fired off a letter to newly confirmed U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, warning that reductions would "seriously undermine many nutrition, conservation, crop insurance and farm programs that are important to all Americans." The Feb. 2 letter said, "With prices for many major commodities falling sharply from last year, reductions to farm programs would come at precisely the time that these supports are most needed in

PACIFIC GROVE, CA " A survey conducted by the University of California-Santa Cruz reveals that consumers want to know about the source of the food they eat. Phil Howard of UC-Santa Cruz?s Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems shared findings of the study at the 25th annual Ecological Farming Conference held here at Asilomar Conference Center in late January. Mr. Howard?s written evaluation and summation of the study were provided to attendees of a seminar he hosted. The survey asked people in five Central Coast counties what kind of information they would like to have when buying

PHILADELPHIA " As the board of directors of the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market emerged from a planning meeting on the afternoon of Feb. 8, board President Jimmy Storey of Quaker City Produce said that the final design for a new Philadelphia produce market had been finally " and officially " accepted. ?It is still a mall-type of effect," as was initially planned. A tired-sounding Mr. Storey added, "We?re a little concerned about parking, and we?re a little concerned about the cost. But we?ll work everything out." Mr. Storey said that Jamie McDermott, executive director of the Philadelphia

Although unusually heavy rain in January caused some delays in the Southern California strawberry harvest, growers say that plants are healthy, new fruit is coming on strong, and there should be good volume for the Easter pull. California strawberry acreage increased by anywhere from 1,700 acres to 3,400 acres each year from 2001 to 2004. This year, the increase is only 998 acres, an increase of about 3.2 percent, according to the California Strawberry Commission?s 2005 acreage survey. Total planted acreage for 2005 is estimated at 32,636 acres. Southern California strawberry acreage increased