MONTEREY, Calif. — While the opening session for the Produce Marketing Association’s Foodservice Conference & Exposition may not happen until July 31, the days leading up to the annual show are busy for produce companies and their customers.
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Ashley Bentley |
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Steve Gill, partner in Gills Onions, Oxnard, Calif., talks to a group of buyers from U.S. Foodservice during a tour of his company's packinghouse July 30. |
The week before the annual convention is prime time for foodservice distributors across the country to visit their produce suppliers in the West.
Steve Gill, partner in Oxnard, Calif.-based Gills Onions, took a group of U.S. Foodservice buyers through the company’s fields, packinghouse and processing plant July 30. The company unveiled its anaerobic digestor, which creates methane fuel out of waste onion parts to power the plant, during the summer of 2009.
Gill said the company is running late harvesting out of San Joaquin, Calif., because of cool weather. While it was letting its red onions sit underground and develop color for a few days, Gills was harvesting yellow onions.
Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” and host Mike Rowe recently visited the plant, and Gill said he anticipates the episode will air this fall.
Salinas-based Church Bros. LLC gave tour attendees a look at some of the company’s new projects, including a broccoli processing line that came online two weeks ago. The company also showcased its Teen Green Sandwich Leaf, a green leaf variety developed to be shorter and rounder for sandwiches.
“We’ve gotten extremely positive feedback, and our sales are growing rapidly,” said Ernst Van Eeghen, director of sales and marketing.
The company moved into a new plant in the last three years, and more recently started handling fresh-cut lettuces and broccoli.
Church Bros. plans to add two more lines to its Salinas processing plant by September, and intends to add a fresh-cut line to its Yuma, Ariz., plant by December, Van Eeghen said.
PMA also sponsored its fifth annual golf tournament to benefit the Nucci Scholarship for Culinary Innovation. Scholarship recipients earn a chance to attend the conference and assist the guest celebrity chefs at the show.
This year’s chefs are Rick Bayless, owner of Topolobampo and Frontera Grill in Chicago; William Bloxsom-Carter, executive chef and food and beverage director for Playboy Mansion West, and Robert Danhi, owner of Chef Danhi & Co. and PMA’s consulting chef. The three are scheduled to host a seminar and demonstrations Aug. 1.