Last year’s outbreak of E. coli in spinach lead United Fresh Produce Association (UFPA) & Western Growers Association (WGA) to come up with best practices standards.
These standards were recently described and discussed at a recent National Restaurant Association’s meeting titled, “Produce Safety & the Foodservice Industry: A Farm to Table Conference.”
“The public must be able to trust in an independent, objective government body as the final arbiter and enforcer of what is safe enough,” says Tom Stenzel, president and CEO of the UFPA in remarks at the NRA meeting. “When a consumer walks into your restaurant, they must be able to buy fresh produce and know its safe enough, as determined by an independent, objective body.”
In September of 2006 fresh spinach was infected with the pathogen E. coli, which caused the deaths of three people and sickened more than 200 across the US. A combined US Food and Drug Administration and California Department of Health Services investigation traced the spinach to a farm in the Salinas Valley.
Further, according to Bob Brackett, chief of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, from 1996 to 2006 there were 72 recorded food-borne illness outbreaks associated with fresh produce.
In the wake of spinach-borne outbreak and as farmers in the Salinas Valley begin their spring planting, food service professionals and suppliers have shown even greater interest in food safety.
To address concerns among professionals and the public the UFPA and WGA has outlined and accepted best-practice guidelines. These lay out extensive steps growers and handlers can take in six key risk areas to prevent contamination.
The risk areas are water use, soil treatment, crop treatment, flooding, animal access to crop fields and use of adjacent land. Within each of these areas there are a set of guidelines to minimize contamination risk.
Further, the board of the WGA accepted the guidelines to use as a basis for a new marketing agreement for the produce industry in California. Produce handlers in California that sign on to the agreement are required to comply with the above guidelines. Inspectors from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, trained by officials at the US Department of Agriculture, will enforce compliance.
For more information visit: www.caleafygreens.ca.gov/docs/resources.