I need to count how many of each item is contained in a column of data (for instance, 4000 rows of data, 100 different items, but multiples of each item - how many Apples, Oranges, Bananas, etc. of each?). How do I do that in Excel 2007?

I would use COUNTIF() for this.

=COUNTIF(A:A, "*apple*")

If the text is in column A and quantities that need summing are in column B, then SUMIF():

=SUMIF(A:A, "*apple*", B:B)