North Bay Business Journal

With foods makers scrambling for lower-sugar sweetening alternatives and recent medical research reversing diatribes against palm oil, coconut and the benefits of balancing diets with certain fats, Mill Valley-based Leslie’s Organics, LLC, is readjusting logistics for its Coconut Secret line of consumer products as sales increase. …

Irvine-based commercial real estate brokerage network Sperry Van Ness International Corp. added a 29th California office and a second one in the North Bay with newly established franchise Sperry Van Ness/MG Property Advisors, Inc. …

Luxury goods consignment e-tailer The RealReal (therealreal.com), started by a Marin County resident and dot-com pioneer, outgrew its Sausalito attire and moved to San Francisco after receiving $14 million in Series B funding. …

NAPA — A rapidly expanding company that aims to make it easier to build websites and attract visitors to them itself is finding it easier than expected to entice prospective employees to work at its south Napa headquarters.

SANTA ROSA — Landesign Construction & Maintenance, Inc., one of the North Bay’s largest commercial landscape contractors, is setting up a Marin County operations hub as the company picks up more work there.

SANTA ROSA — Packaged vegetarian foods maker Amy’s Kitchen plans to come up with a new recipe in coming months for a major production expansion after learning that its original idea would cost about $31 million just for supplying the new plant with water and treating what goes down the drain.

SANTA ROSA — SenarioTek has been able to survive economic slumps over its 10 years in business by diversifying target markets for its products used in testing wireless communications systems.

Sonoma County recently has seen a sharp increase in craft beer makers opening alongside well-established producers, helping a region synonymous with wine tap more into a business with brewing demand across California.

In recent months, scores of startup breweries have emerged while the big three — Lagunitas, Russian River Brewing Company and Bear Republic — all mull expansion or increase capacity.

SAN RAFAEL — Burnham Benefits Insurance Services, a sizable employee benefits brokerage based in Irvine, announced it would open a new branch in San Rafael, where it hopes to capitalize on proximity to San Francisco in driving growth in Northern California.

SAUSALITO — One year after launching its Inside Connections for job seekers on Facebook, Glassdoor is looking to innovate further.

SANTA ROSA — Telephone and Internet service provider Sonic.net is rapidly expanding its business connections, including a major sales push in Southern California and a planned fiber-to-the-business network in Santa Rosa.

WINDSOR — Kaiser Permanente on Thursday said it would give Alliance Medical Center a $60,000 grant to help the nonprofit health center’s expansion at its Windsor site.

SANTA ROSA — After more than six years of planning, the larger new home of Redwood Empire Food Bank is set to open Tuesday.

SANTA ROSA — McLea’s Tire & Automotive Service plans to open its fifth location this spring as the family-owned company tries to capture more Sonoma County commercial and retail business as well as increase its purchasing power.

The year 2012 has shown steady signs of economic recovery for the city of Benicia.

SEBASTOPOL — FlashCo Manufacturing, a fabricator of roof-penetration details with integrated flashing designed to trim installation time and enhance waterproofing, is doubling the size of its headquarters plant in a move to Santa Rosa.

NAPA — VinLux Fine Wine Transport, a logistics company for fine wines going to California trade accounts, more than doubled the size of its south Napa facility and staff to accommodate a surge in wine shipments and demand for its services.

SAN RAFAEL — San Rafael-based wealth management and advising firm Private Ocean is expanding, responding to rising demand from a wave of aging Bay Area executives and business owners eying an end-of-career asset strategy.

SANTA ROSA — A training center for North Coast apprentice electricians is getting a major upgrade as the skills needs grow to work on increasingly advanced automation, alternative-energy and energy-efficiency systems.

ROHNERT PARK — Amy’s Kitchen brought the convenience of frozen vegetarian meals to the grocery aisle 25 years ago, and now the Petaluma-based packaged-foods company wants to do the same for the fast-food drive-through.

NAPA — Petaluma-based Pure Luxury Transportation is establishing a Napa Valley base of operations for up to a quarter of its 100-plus limousines, sedans, SUVs, buses and, soon, motorcoaches as part of a Bay Area expansion plan amid a double-digit increase in revenue last year.

UKIAH — New life for the former Masonite plant in north Ukiah as a home for multiple manufacturers began early this month as a growing local maker of exhaust systems for personal watercraft and snowmobiles begins a $6 million project this year to triple the size of its production plant.