The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement and Western Growers have launched an online audit system to use in place of some in-person parts of the LGMA audit process.
The Virtual Desktop Audits Program is free to all Western Growers and LGMA members, according to a news release.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on reducing human contact forced agencies to find virtual methods to continue inspections. The Virtual Desktop Audits program is in response to the need to reduce contact while continuing audits.
The program’s platform allows leafy greens handers to upload audit documents to a personal online repository on the day of the audit, according to the release, with security measures like the ones used for in-person audits.
The benefits of the program, according to the release, include:
- Users can answer questions and upload documents at their convenience;
- General audit information can be entered once and copied to other folders;
- Growers and handlers can share their audit report with shippers and buyers without repeating the process for each one; and
- Around-the-clock customer support.
For more information or to sign up for the Virtual Desktop Audits Program, e-mail calgmavirtualaudits@wga.com.
