FARMING

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FARMING AND FOOD SAFETY Richard Yudin
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Mexican melon crisis of 2003 A breakdown in
sanitation led to a complete ban on imports
into the USA and Canada, ruining many growers
and marketers
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California Spinach scare of 2006 A grower
downhill from a cattle operation harvested a crop
contaminated by E. coli O157H7, which went into
bagged salads, reportedly killing three and
sickening hundreds more. The contamination has
been blamed on feral pigs
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Costa Rican Cantaloupes, 2007 Expedient use of
insufficiently-cleaned harvest baskets as
containers for fruit in cold storage led to
Salmonella being found on the fruit on delivery
to California, massive recalls by dealers who
had already forwarded fruit to retailers, and
rejections of further shipments.
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Honduran Cantaloupes, 2008 On 22nd March the FDA
announced an import ban on the fruit of
a specific grower, alleging that Salmonella
litchfield had been detected on their
produce So nobody buys any Honduran melons
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There is no explosion in contaminations Just
better technology for detecting them We still
lack a more coherent system of reporting disease
outbreaks and tracing their origins, the United
States governments Center for Disease
Control depends on information from many
sources that do not always follow similar
procedures.
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You sold it, legally it is no longer your
property, but thats your brand on the
box and you are still liable for any
contamination found, or alleged !
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Food Safety Recall Sliced Apples Station
KSTP, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 20th January 2009
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A headline like this strikes terrorinto the
hearts of supermarket produce managers,
distribution services, and of course the
growers and packers
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               Transcribed from American /
Western Fruit Grower, January 26, 2009 A
Wisconsin company ordered a recall of sliced
apples because they may pose a health risk, a
Minneapolis, MN, TV station reported last week.
The company, Richland Hills, told KSTP that
nearly 50,000 pounds of apples may be
contaminated with Listeria. There were no
reports of illnesses, but the bacteria can cause
serious and sometimes deadly infections in
children, elderly people, and others with
weakened immune systems. It can also be very
dangerous for pregnant women. In healthy
individuals the bacteria can cause fever,
headache, nausea and diarrhea.
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The company found the bacteria through a sampling
program it uses to ensure food safety.The
company, along with the FDA, is investigating to
determine what caused the problem.The recalled
apples were sold in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin,
Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, and Louisiana
through retail stores, food service, and fast
food outlets.Anyone who bought the recalled
apples can return the product where purchased for
a full refund.
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Whats different about this case ? 1 No
victims reported the recall is
precautionary 2 the company has its own
product monitoring program, and issued the
notice itself no government intervention at
any level before the recall.
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Why is the FDA involved if there are no victims
? The fruit has been sold in eight states, so
it has entered interstate commerce and
therefore falls under Federal jurisdiction. After
being sliced, the apples became processed food
rather than fresh produce and shifted from USDA
jurisdiction to the FDAs.
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What is the notifying company trying to do ? 1
avoid a potentially crippling series of liability
lawsuits 2 avoid being shut down by food
safety authorities at Local, State and Federal
levels 3 demonstrate its good faith to
customers, the public, and its own employees 4
comply with the terms of its liability insurance
policy
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What problems do they face now ? 1
Loss of sales, for this batch and possible later
ones some retailers may de-list the product,
for a permanent loss. 2 Resentment from
distributors who have to sideline goods in
transit, and who will be called upon to provide
storage for goods being returned 3 disruption
of their operations until the cause is found and
remedies developed and applied. 4 handling
costs for goods being returned to retailers,
often inflated by fraudulent claims 5 costs
for disposal of the returned and sidelined items,
more expensive now that they have been declared
hazardous
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Seemingly, a very courageous and altruistic
decision What do you think is their main error
so far apart from allowing contamination to
happen ?
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Ever heard of TRACEABILITY ? If you look at
most processed food products you will see batch
numbers, and usually sell-by dates. They all
appear for the same reason minimizing recall
costs Also for better stock control, meaning
older goods go out on the shelves first before
they expire
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• When a car manufacturer announces a recall of
• its vehicles because of some generalized fault,
• it will mention specific brands, models and dates
• Sometimes specific serial numbers as well
• In this way they restrict their costs, and the
• hassle factor for dealers to a small number

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The Richland Hills organization apparently did
not announce that specific batches with unique
identifying marks were involved if they did,
the media did not pick it up so now they face
having to bring back every sliced-apple product
they have made !
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And. sliced apples may be going into baked
goods and fruit salads prepared by other
companies, who have no way of checking that what
they have in stock, or have alreay used, is part
of the potentially infected material, so there
will be follow on recalls ! This is happening
right now to industrial users of peanuts and
pistachios ! So Richland Hills may face even
more claims
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FDA finds multiple problems at Georgia peanut
plant officials call for criminal probe By
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press Writer
1137 AM EST, January 29, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP)
Worried about salmonella, the Army said
Thursday it's removing some peanut butter items
from warehouses in Europe, the latest in an
ever-growing list of recalled peanut products
linked to a national salmonella
outbreak.Already more than 430 kinds of cakes,
cookies and other goods in the civilian
world have been pulled off store shelves in what
the Food and Drug Administration is calling one
of the largest product recalls in memory. More
than 500 people have gotten sick in the United
States outbreak, and at least eight may have died
as a result of salmonella infection. At the
center of the investigation is a Georgia peanut
processing plant where federal inspectors reported
finding roaches, mold, a leaking roof and other
sanitary problems.Managers at the Blakely, Ga.,
plant owned by Peanut Corp. of America continued
shipping peanut products even after they were
found to contain salmonella, the FDA said. The
company shipped the food items after retesting
them and getting negative results.
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Salmonella had been found previously at least 12
times in products made at the plant, but
production lines were never cleaned after
internal tests indicated contamination, FDA
inspectors said in a report. Products that
initially tested positive were retested. When the
company got a negative reading, it shipped the
products out.That happened as recently as
September. A month later, officials began picking
up signs of a salmonella outbreak.
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Publix recalls boxes of ice cream linked to
salmonella outbreak By Bob LaMendola South
Florida Sun-Sentinel 1256 PM EST, January 29,
2009 Publix Supermarket today is recalling some
boxes of ice cream treat called Round Top Sundae
Cones, because they are topped with chopped
peanuts from a factory linked to the nationwide
salmonella outbreak.The affected ice cream
comes in packages with eight four-ounce cones
and labeled with a UPC code of 41415 26643,
Publix said in a statement Thursday. Customers
who have purchased these cones can return them
to the store for a full refund. For information,
call 800-242-1227.The nuts came from Peanut
Corp. of America's plant in Georgia, whose
peanut butter and peanut products caused 500
illnesses nationwide, although none in
Florida. Notice how Publix mentioned a specific
batch number !
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How concerned are you about the salmonella
scare? Very concerned (204 responses) 31.2
Somewhat concerned (125 responses) 19.1 Not
too concerned (150 responses) 22.9 Not
concerned at all (175 responses) 26.8 654
total responses (Results not scientific) Fort
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, March 14 2009
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So what do produce companies do to minimize their
potential liabilities ? There is no legal
obligation for produce companies to put any
traceability markings on their fresh or
minimally processed goods. Only recently has
it become mandatory for imported produce to show
its country of origin U.S. growers lobbied
successfully to avoid having a state of origin
label
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Many companies label their fresh produce with a
brand label In a recall situation this can make
sure only one sources fruit or vegetables are
pulled off the shelves
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Some are sophisticated, with barcodes but
because of the cost of printing them, they are
not common and anyway little information can
be conveyed, usually a serial number that links
back to batch information in the marketers
database not much use to lower-level
employees told to pull a certain product off the
shelves.
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Most companies place a batch marking on the
cartons, usually handstamped for legibility,
because clear and consistent handwriting is as
frequent among farm workers as it is in the
medical profession. a few have more
sophisticated paper labels printed specifically
for each batch a tiny number have in-line
inkjet printers
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The cost of placing specific information on small
numbers of items is very high a cost/benefit
analysis may have a negative result especially
if a detailed study of the potential for
contamination and the probability of a
recall shows the risk is low so even carton
markings are not always present.
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Barcoding of cartons and pallets is
popular .sometimes using a coding system
that gives detailed information to anyone who has
the necessary key most often simply a serial
number with some basic information country of
origin, a unique corporate registry number, in a
few cases, a product description
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But for barcoding to work there have to be
optical readers which are prone to misread codes
if not perfectly aligned you have seen this
happen at supermarkets checkouts and in places
where work does not go on continuously like
harvest collection points and loading docks, the
readers are often hand-carried having people
running across a busy factory floor and getting
in the way of fork-lift trucks and road vehicles
can be very dangerous.
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Barcode reading errors are frequent with
handheld equipment, requiring extra passes and
lost time. there is an alternative Radio
Frequency Identification, usually abbreviated as
RFID this is based on very simple
transponders, like the tags used in clothing
stores, and on library books the cost per unit
is dropping, a very simple tag that carries only
a unique number can be made for about 12
cents too much for a carton of low-value
produce, but financially feasible for a pallet
load
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RFID may be the way of the future, since the
radio equipment can be remote from the goods
being scanned, and no human involvement is
required like many innovations, high initial
capital cost, but lower operating costs over
time, with a reduction in safety risks too. The
antennae can be mobile and flexible, it is
possible to rig them temporarily and then remove
them for re-use.
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But all systems, even if based on a single chalk
mark, need a reliable database ! The most
elaborate labels are a waste of time and money
unless you can quickly access the information and
provide it to whoever needs it without a clear
record of which goods are potentially
contaminated, and how to distinguish them easily,
you may be forced to recall everything like
the maker of sliced apples.
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And everyone in the company needs to be trained
about how to respond to a recall situation, not
just about food safety it is quite likely that
the apple slicers do have the necessary
information for limiting the damage but the
person who made the announcement to the media did
not realize that it existed, and let the Press
Release go out without it a very expensive
mistake !
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So what can a farmer do to minimize
contamination risks ?
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In the United States growers follow Better
Management Practices, or BMPs. Europeans
call these Good Agricultural Practices,
abbreviated to GAP.
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• Why do they spend the money ?
• Public Liability
• Loss of Markets
• Avoiding further regulation

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You can never eliminate the risks entirely But
you can minimize them And by applying and
documenting preventive measures, you can
deflect some of the consequences when failures do
occur in legal terms, act with due diligence.
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There has been anexplosion in the numberof
inspection andcertification systemsdesigned to
reassurepurchasers that theproduce is safe to
eat.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization and the
World Health Organization of the United Nations
began jointly developing their Codex
Alimentarius of food safety recommendations in
1963. This is still the only standard accepted
by the World Trade Organization as applicable to
international transactions.
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In the 1960s the Pillsbury organization developed
the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control
Points System to minimize risks in foods being
supplied for the Space Program. This is commonly
known by its initials, HACCP. This system caught
on rapidly, and from 1994 has been mandatory for
meat and poultry traders in the United States.
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Codex has not really caught on in the private
sector because it is viewed as slow to change in
response to innovations in technology and
chemistry. There is also no enforcement
mechanism.
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• HACCP works because
• It is designed around teams to maximize the
  participation of all involved in production as
  well as management
• It can be tailored to the needs of individual
  operations
• The government carries a big stick

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The USDA has a voluntary Audit Verification
Program for Good Agricultural Practices andGood
Handling Practices, basedon the Food and Drug
Administrations Guide to Minimize Microbial
Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruits and
Vegetables
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There are many other publicly-available Farm
certification programs in circulation, among
othersSQF promoted by the United Fresh Fruit
and Vegetable AssociationGlobalGAP required
by most European supermarket chainsRainforest
Alliance developed bythe Forest Stewardship
Council
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And many more, often developedby individual
audit and certification companies, or major
retail chains,each promoting their own package.
Plus State BMP rules Florida has 11!And of
course Organic standards
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The restrictions on communication between
operators in the same markets make it impossible
for industry-wide coordination of such seemingly
essential procedures in the USA. This is not the
case in Europe, where regular formal discussions
are held.
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So domestic growers,and foreigners selling to
the United States, are driven crazy trying to
keep up with many different checklists.
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All seek the same thingPreventing
anyBiologicalChemicalPhysicalContamination
of Food
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To survive, a growermust concentrate on one main
message, and make sureeveryone working with him
understands and follows it.Then compliance with
all the different checklists is easy.
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Everyonemust avoidanythingcontaminating food.
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365 days a year Not just when an
Auditor shows up!
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How to guarantee failures Let the workers
see all the bosses scrambling to put things
right for the visitors to see then everything
reverts to how it used to be !
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• The main problem everywhere is
• lack of management commitment
• The workers wear caps, gloves, boots, etc.
• The bosses wander through in street clothes

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Subliminal message to workers It doesnt
really matter. So they see no reason to follow
rules
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How to succeedThe top people must
publiclyendorse the program, andbe seen to
follow through, and constantly !
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Instructions must be given by line bosses Not
some unknown from Human Resources Meaning
someone who can take your job away if you mess up
and endanger theirs !
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• The next problem everywhere is poor
• personal hygiene
• The workers are told to wash their hands

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BUT THERE IS NO SOAP, NO TOWELS, AND THE
WASHROOM IS FILTHY
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CAN YOU GUESS THE SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE ?
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YOU DONT NEED SOPHISTICATED EQUIPMENT TO DO
AN EFFECTIVE JOB! INGENUITY CAN HELP.
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• Poor worker hygiene is a management
• failure, usually through poor example,
• followed by neglect of facilities
• Cleanliness is seen as a menial job,
• not worthy of management attention
• until your product is rejected because
• of microbial contamination !

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How to succeed in sanitation

• Visible management involvement
• Constant training of workers by bosses
• Attention to everyday details every day
• No tolerance of any breakdowns

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• Things to avoid
• Cleaning by unsupervised contractors,
• outside regular working hours
• Toleration of less-than-perfect cleaning
• of spots that are difficult to reach
• change them or eliminate them

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Like cooling systems so well sealed you cannot
see inside
? And one of my
pet hates, pipes you cannot clean
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Or a wastepile breeding rats and flies
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Get out a simple message Keep the place like a
hospital ..or you could end up in one !