Food safety isn’t a matter of growers alone

08/24/2012 09:33:00 AM
Chris Koger

Most of the media attention has been focused on the growers, but increasingly, members of the industry are looking to the retailers who bought the cantaloupes.

A common refrain we at The Packer hear from growers is that they are increasingly burdened by the costs of third-party audits mandated by customers, and, in some cases, larger firms selling to multiple retailers must contract with more than one food safety auditing company.

In the Burch Farms case, on-site audits did not include the 115 acres of cantaloupes grown this season. At Jensen Farms, the audit was done before the season was in full swing, so there was no true measure of the company’s food safety performance.

More information on practices at Chamberlain Farms will likely be coming out soon.

How closely are buyers checking to see if suppliers are truly toeing the line when it comes to food safety? As in the case of Jensen Farms, it’s evident that a piece of paper declaring a clean bill of health one week doesn’t hold true throughout the season.

This will no doubt fuel grower unease as they write a check — or two or more — to third-party certifiers. But those audits are necessary, regardless of how many acres they ship from.

ckoger@thepacker.com

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Comments (6) Leave a comment 

The problem here as I see it is the lack of grower and packer accountability. The only way to improve on this issue is for each melon, or for that matter, each individual piece of fruit and vegetable sold in bulk at retail to have a more distinct form of identification such as a lot number which could then be traced back to the field and field records. The added information on the produce item would point back to the field and packing facility, therefore forcing growers and packers to be more vigilant about the food safety standards.

As stated before retailer's, wholesalers, brokers should be held accountable as well as growers for not thoughly checking the growers paper work and asking for unannouced audits to be done!!! If that big word ( IF ) the audits would be done it would keep everyone doing there paper work daily, product testing would be done as its supposed to be, not just for an up and coming audit!

Its awful things has to happen to our consumers to get actions!!!!

Then again look at the imports, our own USDA doesnt even check 40% of what comes across the borders, it might xray for drugs but what about everything else????? just look at Canada's issue now.

It's everyone's problem to address, but almost all retailers and wholesalers buy from the same suppliers year in and year out, regardless of how the purveyor operates.

Retailers have to stop and analyze whats more important in the daily operation, the gross profit, or the safety of the general public it sells to.

Retailers know who's a reputable wholesaler, and the outbreak in southwestern Indiana is a prime example of the problem. The grocery chain I support has purchased melons from that company for years, knowing all along that when bins arrived there was no label attached to the bins to monitor traceability, but the produce director always turned a blind eye to that, just to purchase them a dime cheaper.

The safety of the public that the Buehler chain services is not even a concern as long as they make a good gross profit.

Growers need to do it the right way and retailers need to only buy from growers and wholesalers that comply with traceability period.

What good will PTI do for a grower if after any commodity leaving it's premises is
handled by other than a PTI compliant food handler?

Up to what point is the grower responsible for his involvement with food safety?

When does accountability start and when does it end in each of the pieces of the
supply chain?

Retailers, Food Service, & restaurants / Institutions are the last point of contact
between end consumer and food, these operators should ensure that their supply is
safe and sound.