WASHINGTON — Early this morning, the Food & Drug Administration released four rewrites of the Food Safety Modernization Act rules, including some critical water quality and testing changes advocated by the industry to make produce safety regulations more workable.

Stakeholders will have 75 days to dig deep into hundreds of pages of regulations on produce safety, preventive controls for human and animal food, and the new Foreign Supplier Verification Program for importers.

With Mexico ending a bit early, Brazil and then Ecuador will be the main sources for mango supplies for the last third of the 2014 calendar year.

Typically, Mexico lasts well into September overlapping the Brazilian deal, which usually gets underway in August and has an eight- to 10-week shipping window before greater volume from Ecuador hits the market in late October and early November.

But this year cold August weather from Mexico to South America resulted in an early end to the Mexican deal and a late start for Brazil.

“The crop is starting early this year,” said Lori Cooper,  manager of the California Date Administrative Committee in Indio, CA, in an interview with The Produce News Sept. 3. It is running anywhere from seven days to 14 days ahead of normal, “depending on where you are in the valley.”

L&M’s Washington state team announced the hire of Craig Barnes as sales specialist and the promotion of Donna Feltrup to the position of sales manager on Sept. 9.

Barnes brings experience in wholesale and domestic retail sales, along with specific expertise in export sales to the L&M team. He was previously with Rainier Fruit and has been in the produce industry since 2010.

Stellar Distributing Inc. anticipates beginning its California kiwifruit harvest around Oct. 3 with an ending date in early November.

The company, headquartered in Madera, CA, provides its customers with a mix of fruit that includes kiwi, limes, grapes, figs, pomegranates, persimmons and chestnuts.

As with many commodities, the California kiwifruit season is running early this year. But Chris Kragie, deciduous fruit manager at Western Fresh Marketing in Madera, CA, is of the opinion that some shippers are pushing to get the fruit off the vines and in the market before it is really ready.