With its Fourth of July weekend ad, Michigan-based Spartan Stores kicked off its summer-long Michigan's Best promotion to support locally grown produce, flowers and other products.

In the produce and floral departments, according to Steve Wright, the retailer's produce and floral procurement manager, more than 300 products will be involved.

Because of a slow start to the Mexican mango deal back in February and March, the 2010 production figures have been chasing the 2009 numbers all season. But in early July, total production for this season surpassed last year, and with good supplies expected during the latter part of the season, this could be one of the top production years in recent memory.

"We are definitely going to beat last year," said Gary Clevenger, co-owner of Freska Produce International LLC in Oxnard, CA.

Beginning in August, a GlobalGAP working group will be officially installed in Peru, according to Alberto Berardo, technical director for ProCitrus, a Lima- based organization formed 12 years ago to promote the welfare of its members through programs to develop the production and marketing of citrus fruits and their derivatives.

In a July 6 e-mail to The Produce News, Mr. Berardo indicated that food safety in Peru "is a very important issue for the export industry; it has a lot of relevance. This has been growing along with the citrus exports activity growth."

Delta, CO, farmer Brent Hines said in late June that his Olathe-area sweet corn was "a little behind schedule because of the cooler spring weather" the region had experienced, but he added, "It looks real good this year."

Mr. Hines now runs the growing operation at Hines Farms while his father, longtime Colorado produce grower-shipper Jerry Hines, oversees the onion shed operations and assists in the fields "as needed."

The younger Mr. Hines told The Produce News that he did not use drip irrigation on the fields this season.

LONGWOOD, FL — Anyone in the produce business who was still not convinced of the need for the Produce Traceability Initiative, a voluntary industry effort to ensure supply chain-wide traceability of every product from farm to fork by 2012, needed only look as far as Illinois in May and early June for a compelling argument for compliance.

David J. Elliot & Son Co., located south of Sacramento near Courtland, CA, grows pears in the Sacramento Delta area but not the mountain districts of Mendocino and Lake counties.

David Thiessen, sales manager for David J. Elliot & Son Co., told The Produce News June 24 that the company's first pear of the season is a Stark Crimson, which it would start harvesting around July 8. Bartlett pears will follow soon after with a harvest start date around July 15-16.