Gourmet News

California Table Grape Growers Offer Scholarships

Published December 5, 2023

Three categories of scholarships, offered by California table grape growers, are available to graduating high school seniors from the table grape growing regions of California.

Of the three categories of scholarships, two are available to field workers and their families.

The first category is a Bridge Scholarship for $14,500 and is available to graduating seniors who will attend two years of a community college and transfer to a four-year university.

The second category is a $25,000 scholarship for graduating seniors who will attend a four-year university.

The third category of scholarship is a $25,000 Agricultural Scholarship available to students residing in the Coachella or San Joaquin valleys who will attend a four-year university and are interested in a field of study applicable to the table grape industry.

Three scholarships from each category are available. Applicants for all scholarships must plan to attend a California college or university. The deadline to apply for all scholarships is Friday, Feb. 9, 2024 at 5 p.m.

Since 1985, California table grape growers have aided nearly 200 students in attending college.

To hear recent scholarship recipients in their own words, please visit: https://www.grapesfromcalifornia.com/community-outreach/scholarship-recipients/

For more information on the scholarship program, please visit: https://www.grapesfromcalifornia.com/community-outreach/ or email: Scholarships@grapesfromcalifornia.com.

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Darigold CEO Coote Steps Down, Huttema Named Interim CEO

Published December 5, 2023

Darigold, Inc., one of the nation’s largest dairy producers, announced that Chief Executive Officer Joe Coote is leaving the company and that Board Chairman Allan Huttema has been named interim CEO. The change comes as Coote, who was named to the CEO role in January 2022, plans to return to his native Australia.

“I take over as Interim CEO with the benefit of having an extremely capable leadership team in place, including a number of Darigold veterans and newer leaders with proven track records across the dairy and consumer packaged goods sectors,” said Huttema. “Our business is structured to run around two divisions – business to business and business to consumer – each with experienced, proven leaders running them.

“I have full confidence that the team and the structure we have in place will help ensure that we continue serving our customers in the way they have come to expect from us.”

One of the nation’s largest dairy producers, Darigold is deep into a multi-year transformational journey that has the company modernizing and globalizing its business. Its transformation is focused on expanding production capacity with a new facility currently under construction in Pasco, Wash., modernizing systems, reinvesting in its iconic, 100-year-old brand, and refocusing its culture on excellence in execution.

Coote joined Darigold three years ago as president of its International Ingredients division before being promoted to CEO in 2022. He’d spent 12 years prior working globally in the dairy sector.

“Joe took over as CEO at a time when we were early into a transformation to grow and modernize our business,” said Huttema. “Under his leadership, we took significant steps forward on that effort, beginning construction of our new facility in Pasco, launching a migration of our business management systems, and beginning to develop a culture rooted in excellence in operations.

“We are grateful for Joe’s time with Darigold and appreciate all of his contributions. On behalf of our full Board, I wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Huttema is one of Darigold’s 300 farmer-owners and has served on its board of directors for nine years. He has held the role of chairman of the board for the last three years. His experience on Darigold’s board, coupled with his work as an active dairyman in Idaho, give Huttema well-rounded experience with Darigold and a deep understanding of its complex operations.

Darigold has taken recent steps to strengthen its already capable leadership team, naming presidents for its Business to Consumer and Business to Business divisions, hiring consumer packaged goods leader Dan Hofmeister and dairy sector veteran Chris Rowe to fill those roles, respectively. The company also named a new senior vice president of sales, Dan Bukowski, to support its growth efforts.

“Serving as CEO of Darigold the last two years was a great privilege,” said Coote. “I have enormous respect and admiration for our farmer-owners and the teams across our business that work so hard to keep our customers stocked with great, high-quality dairy products. Having been away from my home country for many years now, my family and I are ready to return to Australia to begin new adventures back home.”

Huttema assumes the role of interim CEO effective immediately.

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US Agencies Converge to Reduce Food Loss, Waste

Published December 4, 2023

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a national strategy that will drive progress toward the national goal to reduce food loss and waste in the United States by 50 percent by 2030. This action is a continuation of the three agencies’ collaborative efforts to build a more sustainable future.

In the United States, food is the single most common material found in landfills. More than one-third, nearly 100 million tons, of municipal waste stream is organic waste and food comprises sixty-six million tons of that waste. The Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics identifies opportunities to reduce food loss and waste across the entire supply chain.

“The FDA supports the mission to reduce food loss and waste. While we look forward to our continued partnership with USDA and EPA, we also want Americans to feel empowered and confident in their ability to play a part in that mission,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. “We encourage the public to comment on practical ways everyone can play a role in reducing food waste.”

This Strategy is a deliverable in the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, released in conjunction with the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in September 2022.

The draft strategy features four objectives:

Prevent the loss of food where possible.
Prevent the waste of food where possible.
Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.
Support policies that incentivize and encourage food loss and waste prevention and organics recycling.

For each objective, the draft strategy highlights actions that the FDA, USDA or EPA could take. Examples of specific FDA actions include:

FDA and USDA will contribute date labeling and food safety advice to inform EPA’s national consumer education campaign.
FDA will continue working with the food industry to advance the goals under the FDA New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative to support and encourage supply chain stakeholders to adopt and leverage tech-enabled digital tracing technologies to remove contaminated foods more rapidly and accurately from the marketplace, while simultaneously reducing food loss and food waste associated with contamination events.
FDA will continue to encourage uniform adoption of food donation practices updated in the Food Code, which provide consistency and uniformity for public health officials.

This effort will also provide social and economic benefits, including the potential to:

Increase food access for food-insecure Americans and increase the recovery rate and donation of wholesome food, such as through the emergency food system.
Create new jobs, industries, and sectors of the economy.
Increase supply chain resiliency.
Deliver financial savings to households, which can also help address the needs of underserved communities.

The public comment will begin on Dec. 5 and will remain open for 30 days. Share comments through Regulations.gov, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OLEM-2022-0415.

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