SACRAMENTO CALIF. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Kicked off July 23, the auditing and enforcement arm puts teeth into the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement announced earlier this year. The agreement is designed to improve the safety of processed fresh greens, such as bagged lettuces, some of which have been implicated in E. coli O157:H7 contamination incidences in recent years. A consortium of agribusiness groups, with the help of California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, is behind the Sacramento-based greens marketing agreement. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
“This is a step in the right direction,” said W.B. “Harry” Harrison of the 84-unit Black Angus Steakhouse chain. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
“We’ve got concerned consumers,” added Harrison, director of purchasing and distribution for the Los Altos, Calif.-based chain. “Because of that, we’re asking our suppliers to do things differently.” —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Harrison made those remarks during the recent annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition in Monterey, Calif., where he and other foodservice executives were updated on the progress of the greens marketing agreement. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Under the agreement, companies that ship or process fresh leafy crops sign a contract to guarantee that the farmers they deal with adhere to the food safety provisions of specified good agricultural practices, or GAPs. The penalties for noncompliance include fines and expulsion from the group. After two months of practice audits, formal compliance auditing and enforcement involving 10 state inspectors began July 23. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Asked during the PMA conference if their 1,539-unit family-dining chain expects change to come from the greens marketing agreement, officials of Spartanburg, S.C.-based Denny’s said they were “already seeing it.” During recent field inspections of some of the chain’s produce suppliers in California, Denny’s employees said they noticed new processes or procedures that they believed to have resulted from practice audits staged by inspectors for the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
California produces the majority of the nation’s leafy greens sold fresh but otherwise processed, such as those precut and washed and sold in bags and marketed as “ready to eat.” —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Mark C. Gray, director of regional supply for Denny’s Corp., said his chain is “piggybacking” off the California marketing agreement to improve purchases from across the nation. He said Denny’s has begun asking all produce suppliers to make sure that their farms or the farms that supply them adhere to the safety practices at the core of the California agreement. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
The idea that safety efforts initiated in California should be adopted elsewhere was a common theme among PMA conference speakers and attendees. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Speaker Jorge Hernandez of distributor U.S. Foodservice said he was bothered by the attitudes of some supply chain players as recently as last fall when they referred to produce safety challenges as “a California thing…or a spinach thing…or an international thing.” Hernandez, vice president of food safety and quality assurance for U.S Foodservice, said that while many recent produce contamination incidences were associated with California, it was just the beginning of wide-scale problems “unless we [industrywide] do something about it.” —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Almost all of the leafy greens handling companies in California have signed the marketing agreement, said E. Scott Horsfall, chief executive of the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement. But just to make certain that all handlers, big and small, have an opportunity to take part, agreement administrators have reopened the sign-up period, he said. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
Horsfall said participating companies would be permitted to use service marks or some other indication of their good standing in the program on invoices and other documents and possibly later on packaging. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
“We will publicize loss of certification at our website,” he said. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
PMA conference participants toured fields in the agriculturally rich Salinas Valley area of Central California, listened to educational sessions and walked through an exhibit hall of produce products. In addition to the update on the marketing order, conferencegoers heard about other grower and processor initiatives to reduce contamination problems associated with some fresh produce and restore consumer and commercial buyer confidence in those products. Among those initiatives is the new Center for Produce Safety at the University of California in Davis. —Foodservice operators are optimistic that the formal launch of the auditing and enforcement arm of a recently created public-private partnership will improve the safety of California’s fresh produce.
