An effort to ensure that Mexican-grown papayas meet rigid food safety and quality standards continues to expand.
The Texas International Produce Association and ProExport Papaya, a Mexican growers’ organization, joined forces to tackle the food safety issue in 2019, when Mexican papayas were linked to a salmonella outbreak.
At that time, Jennifer McEntire, senior vice president of food safety for the United Fresh Produce Association (now IFPA), was brought in to develop a “multi-year, multi-step, multi-stakeholder approach” to manage and verify the safety of Mexican papayas, said Hector Garza, director of industry relations for TIPA.
Since that then, TIPA and ProExport Papaya have released “Food Safety Best Practices Guide for the Growing & Handling of Mexican Papayas,” created a Foreign Supplier Verification Program for papaya importers and launched other safety-oriented plans, such as a self-audit verification tool for farms and a root-cause analysis protocol to investigate food safety issues, Garza said.
Most recently, they have turned to consultant William Watson, president of Orlando, Fla.-based The Fresh Approach, to help the industry create a papaya board.
“The actions implemented by ProExport Papaya have helped provide greater assurance to regulatory authorities in Mexico and the U.S.,” said Hector del Razo, director of ProExport Papaya.
The organization focuses on ensuring consumer safety, improving processes and providing tools to all workers at member companies, he said.
“We promote education, fund research, implement a verification program, have a root cause protocol and work closely with authorities such as the FDA and Mexico’s National Service of Health, Food Safety and Food Quality.”
“It’s been quite a journey to see growers and distributors who compete against each other come together to help improve the food safety challenges that we were faced with in the papaya industry,” Garza said.
