On April 29, Bruce Klein, director of marketing for Maurice A. Auerbach in Secaucus, NJ, told The Produce News that it was the first day that temperatures reached into the 70s, despite that spring officially started on March 20.

But some problems the produce industry faces today aren’t going away with the passing of seasons. One of the major problems facing the domestic industry, and will likely have an impact on imported produce in the future, is the drought in California.

Klein said California growers who are farming report having enough water for their needs.

In early April, The Produce News reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service authorized the importation of Mexican figs into the United States, effective March 30, 2015.

While the agriculturally rich Rio Grande Valley has been spared the brunt of the most recent storms and flooding in Texas, nine months of above-average rain has taken its toll in the fresh produce growing areas, with many acres having already been lost.

“We’ve had 60 inches of rain from the fall through the spring,” said Jimmy Bassetti, president of J&D Produce Inc. in Edinburg, TX. “No one has been spared.”

Fairway Market will be opening the prototype of its new store model in Brooklyn, NY. The location will have a smaller footprint and lower cost structure than Fairway's existing stores with the same broad offering of fresh, specialty, organic and conventional products.

Delta, BC-based greenhouse grower and marketer Houweling's Nurseries Ltd. has acquired Loveland, CO-based Sun Valley Farms Inc.

WASHINGTON — When the Food & Drug Administration implements the Food Safety Modernization Act, don’t charge any user fees, offer education and technical assistance to any sized sector and let industry help in drafting the guidance documents. These were some of the suggestions offered by the Produce Marketing Association in its 19-page comments to the FDA last week.