HLB Specialties, a leading specialty produce grower-packer-shipper with an emphasis on papayas, now has the ability to offer organic large papayas in commercial volumes.

Two sectors of the produce industry have an opportunity to enter a joint promotion with a major national consumer brand, Nickelodeon.

Receivers of California apples are guaranteed one thing. The fruit couldn’t be fresher if they had picked it off the trees themselves.

The reason: Once the apples are harvested, the industry moves them into the pipeline immediately.

A fairytale setting, natural wonders, a James Bond 007-themed party and a children’s program to entertain younger family members while parents network promise to help make the 2015 Quebec Produce Marketing Association Convention one of the best ever.

Fairway Group Holdings Corp., parent company of Fairway Market, announced a $13.934 million net loss in its financial results for its fiscal 2016 first quarter on Tuesday, Aug. 4, and by Wednesday afternoon the company’s stock had lost more than 20 percent of its value.

Wonderful Citrus acquired the operations of Texas Citrus Exchange, one of the largest citrus juice processors in Texas. The operations of TCX have been renamed Rio Grande Juice Co., a division of Wonderful Citrus. John Glenn, who was previously chief operating officer of Sun Orchard Inc., has been named vice president of Rio Grande.

One of the challenges and wonders of most avocado trees is that they produce on somewhat of an alternate-year bases. A light crop one year is often followed by a much heavier one.

An estimated 800,000-plus acres of California farmland will sit idle this year. Despite crop declines, the state’s gross farm revenue and employment actually increased slightly last year, and food prices remain steady, according to Dale Kasler and Phillip Reese, who wrote “California farm economy surprisingly resilient amid drought” for  The Sacramento Bee.

Despite a report of record-setting hail in Michigan, the produce trade itself is breathing a sigh of relief.

Mitch Brinks, a salesman for Riveridge Produce Marketing Inc. in Sparta, MI, said there was a brief hail storm Aug. 2 within a violent wind storm that struck Michigan’s fruit ridge. The small volume of hail was soft, Brinks said. If there were any damage to the apple crop, it would be so minor that the fruit would outgrow it.