A new slate of officers was approved at CLFP's Annual Board of Directors Meeting earlier this month for 2022-2023. Jim Lipman with California Olive Ranch will serve as Chair, Mike Smyth with Olam Food Ingredients will be First Vice-Chair, and Melvin Ward with Sunsweet Growers, Inc. will be the Second Vice-Chair.

Arriving in Washington, D.C., amid concerns over global conflict, the pandemic and inflation, the California Farm Bureau board of directors met with members of Congress, federal agencies and others on pressing issues affecting agriculture.

Plant-based foods are here to stay, and they’ve changed the food market for the better,” said Christian Flinn, policy associate with the Plant Based Foods Association, San Francisco, at the Bridge2Food Plant & Protein Summit Americas in Chicago on May 11-12. “Plant-based foods have the potential to feed more people with much less negative impact on the planet, animals and humans.”

CLFP held an Energy Resources Committee meeting on Wednesday, May 25. The meeting featured  updates on a variety of issues affecting California's food processing industry.

For 40 years, HRS products and systems have been used in such sectors as HEVAC, food manufacturing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, the water and energy industries, Waste-to-Energy and environmental protection. Our heat exchangers fall into several categories: gasketed or brazed plate; shell and tube; corrugated tube; scraped surface; and others. We also produce rapid batch reactors, evaporators, calorifiers, and many other packaged units based around our heat exchanger products.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will begin accepting applications for the Commodity Container Assistance Program (CCAP), which currently includes a partnership with the Port of Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA), which is a marine cargo operating partnership between the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma in Washington State.

The California Dairy Innovation Center (CDIC) announced the latest list of short courses which will be offered this year in collaboration with the Pacific Coast Coalition and industry instructors. Dates for an inaugural Dairy Products, Processing, and Packaging Innovation Conference were also announced.